A divorce award of £423m, reported as being Britain’s biggest divorce award, is ‘a further example’ of the trend toward restricting ‘special contribution’, family lawyers say.
Ruling in AAZ v BBZ [2017] EWHC 3234 (Fam), Mr Justice Haddon-Cave rejected the 61-year-old billionaire oil and gas trader ex-husband’s arguments that he was wealthy before the marriage and had made a “special or stellar contribution” to the creation of the couple’s fortune. His ex-wife, 44, who was a “housewife and mother” during the marriage, successfully argued she was due nearly half their wealth because of her “equal contributions to the welfare of the family”.
The couple met in 1989 while the wife was studying in Moscow, and moved to London four years later. Both husband and wife were given leave to remain, and the wife is now a British citizen.
Delivering his judgment, Haddon-Cave J said: ‘[The husband] asserted in his statement of issues that he made a special or stellar contribution to the wealth creation which would justify a departure from a 50:50 division of the assets in his favour.
‘However, save for explaining the difficulties of doing business in Russia and the legal problems he encountered with a large multi-national company in holding onto his Russian company shares, [the husband] did not explain in his statements precisely why he could be said to have made a “stellar” contribution.’
Haddon-Cave J said the husband had not provided proof that he was wealthy before the marriage.
Nicholas Bennett, partner at Farrers, said: ‘The outcome in AAZ v BBZ is complicated by the fact that the husband did not attend and was not represented at the trial; and the wife herself sought less than 50% of the total wealth (her award of £453m represents 41% of the total assets).
‘However, the case is a further example of the trend towards restricting the use of “special contribution”. An enormous level of wealth is no longer enough. An applicant must have demonstrated “exceptionality” or “genius” in generating that wealth; and his or her contribution must have been unmatched by the other spouse’s contributions at home and elsewhere.’
Jane Craig, head of family law at Penningtons Manches, said: ‘Though the sums generated by the husband through his business were huge (in excess of £1bn), the judge found that his contribution was not “unmatched” because while he was away in Russia, building up the business, his wife was “keeping the home fires burning”.
‘His money making was not “special” enough to outweigh the contributions that his wife, as homemaker, had made during their 20-year marriage. “Special contribution” has only been successfully argued on three occasions, each time by a man, but rich men keep trying to run the argument. The courts are now moving away from the gender discrimination of recognising “special contribution” merely because one party, invariably the husband, has been able to generate enormous sums of money, which can be quantified, whilst the wife’s contribution in bringing up the children and looking after the home cannot be measured in the same way.’
The court ordered that the couple’s identity be concealed.
