Mr Justice Moor in the High Court ordered Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai and vice president and prime minister of the UAE, to pay about £554m to his estranged wife Princess Haya, in HRH Haya Bint Al Hussein v His Highness Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum [2021] EWFC 94.
Princess Haya, who lives in London and Egham, is the daughter of the late King Hussein of Jordan and his third wife Queen Alia. She was the youngest of Sheikh Mohammed’s six wives, and the couple have two children. The settlement makes a lump sum payment of more than £250m to the Princess as well as provision for the personal security, including armoured vehicles for the family, education, a nurse, nanny, other staff, ponies and pets.
Divorce lawyer Henry Hood, partner at Lincoln’s Inn firm Hunters Law, said: ‘The judgment has a relentless logic in that it meets (albeit in amounts never before seen in an English court judgment) the ongoing lifelong need that the judge found to exist in circumstances where the funds existed to do so.
‘The actions found to have been perpetrated by the husband, including his readiness to use intelligence and eavesdropping equipment only available to sovereign states might have had their effect on the size of the award.’
The court has previously found Sheikh Mohammed illegally hacked the mobile phones of his wife, her bodyguards and legal team. Moor J said the family court’s fact-finding hearing before the President of the Family Division in November 2019, which the Sheikh did not attend or provide evidence to, made ‘very serious findings… including that HH [Sheikh Mohammed] had ordered and orchestrated the abduction of two of his elder children.’
Moor J said: ‘HRH [Princess Haya] had been placed in a position of great fear. HH had deliberately used his connections with the press to generate hostile stories aimed at destabilising her and harming her. He had published poems considered by HRH to be threatening, including one entitled “You lived; you died”. The President concluded that HH would use his very substantial powers to achieve his aims.’
