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Sunday, September 9, 2007

Divorce-Property Settlements:50% Always Fair?




As I write this the battle rages on between the businessman and his ex-wife, the magistrate. At a particular point in time he was said to be worth One Hundred and Thirty-One Million Pounds. He wants her to have Twenty Million Pounds in a full and final settlement. He says that is more than enough for her to live on for the rest of her life. The interest alone would bring in about Five hundred Thousand Pounds a year.

She wants Forty-Eight Million Pounds. She feels she is worth it. “We’re equals” she insists. So why is she not demanding Sixty-Five million, Five-Hundred Thousand? And why is that amount not enough for him to live on? Meanwhile, the press is asking whether any wife could possibly be worth that much money. They seem to have completely overlooked the judgement in the late Anna Nicole Smith’s favour of $475 million from the estate of her deceased husband.

Granted, that is a somewhat different circumstance, being the probate of a Will, but if a wife can be worth half of her husband’s estate in the event of his death, then why not in the event of divorce?

The principal difference is one of the lack of goodwill, or more specifically, the presence of complicating factors such as who did what that brought about the divorce.

The American comedian, Eddie Murphy, did a whole routine around the theme of “Fifty-Percent!” He asked the question, how does a person, who never actually worked in the business to produce the fortune justify their demands for half of it in the event of the marriage breakdown? Another US comedian, Richard Pryor, when confronted by his wife’s demands for half, said, “woman, you have never ever told a joke, except this one!”

What about the man who has been married three times? How many halves are there!

Eddie Murphy’s logic went along these lines: If a woman is the wife of a mega rich man, what does she actually have to do to support him. She does not have to wash the dishes, clean the house or be concerned about the laundry. She does not have to make the school run, she has a chauffeur to do that and other people to do everything else.


A man can get to be the head of a successful business group without the absolute need for a wife. However, if he had a wife who put him through higher learning that led to his success, we now have a basis upon which to begin working toward a sensible formula for the distribution of assets in that specific case.

It is noteworthy that this type of problem is only important in those cases where a lot of assets are concerned. At the lower end where the only thing of value that the couple has is the house, the courts do not seem to have any difficulty in awarding the entire house to the wife, especially if there are children.

In the case of the businessman and his magistrate wife, he says that he didn’t even begin to make strides in his business until after the subsistence of the marriage was over. He stayed to keep the family unit intact because of the children. His point being that his wife’s claim that she helped him to succeed is false, as he asserts that he succeeded in spite of her. But the difference between what he wants her to have and what she wants, he has earned many times over in the meantime.

At the end of the day, “A man who dies rich, dies disgraced”.(Andrew Carnegie, 1889)

Coming right on the heels of this case is another bitter contest involving the singer and the lady whom his friends warned him about. He listened only to his heart and now he wished he had been wiser. But what’s a fella to do? If you have loads of money and a grand country pile you do need someone to help keep you warm at night. Wherever lots of money is involved things have a nasty habit of getting very complicated.

I think that when the split comes it’s all about providing the other person with the means to maintain their lifestyle in the manner to which they have become accustomed as a result of your largesse and efforts. It’s not a question of how does a person get to be worth the amount. You as the purse-holder conferred that right and value upon them.

This formula works both ways, regardless of who holds the purse strings. It is the curse of the rich that unless they associate only with those as wealthy as themselves, if they invite in an outsider of lesser means they may have to pay to be rid of their unwanted appendage.

Copyright © 2007 Eugene Carmichael