Archive for November, 2014

The English family courts are accustomed to dealing with ‘big money’ divorces with a distinctly international flavour and, in one such, a ‘fabulous’ penthouse flat in one of London’s most exclusive areas – said to be worth £20 million – was at the centre of a bitter struggle between an 89-year-old Saudi Arabian sheikh and his Lebanese ex-wife. The sheikh was ‘outraged’ when his ex-wife laid claim to the flat, near Regent’s Park. He had divorced her in an Islamic ‘talaq’ ceremony and hotly disputed her right to bring financial relief proceedings against him in London on the basis that the fall-out from the end of their marriage was a ‘deeply, deeply’ Saudi Arabian affair. However, his 63-year-old former wife argued that she had now made her permanent home in London and needed somewhere to live. When her ex-husband, a hugely ... Read more