A retired banker has slashed the amount of money he has to give his wife in a divorce settlement by £20,000,000 after winning a Supreme Court appeal.
Clive Standish, 72, was ordered by the High Court to hand £45 million to his former partner, Anna, in 2022.
He appealed, saying the majority of his fortune was made before the couple began living together in Switzerland in 2004.
The case became more complicated by Mr Standish’s decision to transfer £80 million to his wife in 2017.
He did this because Mrs Standish’s Australian non-dom status would significantly reduce the inheritance tax their two children would face.
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He had expected her to use the £80 million to establish offshore trusts, but this failed to materialise, and she remained sole owner of the money when legal action began.
The case was taken to the Court of Appeal, where Mrs Standish’s share was reduced by a whopping £20 million, dropping her total shares to £25 million.
It was then taken to the Supreme Court, where Mrs Standish’s representative argued that the assets had become shared property when they were transferred to her and she accepted them as a gift.
However, Tim Bishop KC, said it was not a gift for her sole benefit, but ‘primarily for the benefit of the children’.
Five Supreme Court Justices agreed with the Court of Appeal ruling that 75% of the money had been earned before the couple married.
In their ruling, they said: ‘The crucial point is that the 2017 assets are largely non-matrimonial property and only a relatively small element comprises matrimonial property.’
They added: ‘The problem for [Mrs Standish] is that there is nothing to show that, over time, the parties were treating the 2017 assets as shared between them.
‘Rather, the transfer was in pursuance of a scheme to negate inheritance tax and it was for the benefit exclusively of the children.’
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