The Family Court has upheld a marriage pre-nup agreement that entitled a wife to £37.5 million as part of her divorce settlement.

The couple had met in the United States, where they lived before settling in the UK with their two young children. The husband was a billionaire and the family had enjoyed a high standard of living with several homes around the world.

They entered into a pre-nuptial agreement in New York before the marriage in 2012, which was modified in 2014 to increase the wife’s financial provision. The marriage ended in 2020.

There was a dispute between the parties as to the correct interpretation of the modified agreement. The wife also applied for a child maintenance award.

The court upheld the pre-nup agreement and found that the wife was entitled to the full £37.5 million.

She was also entitled to 17 years’ use of the husband’s share in the family home, worth £9.15 million, which was based on her living at the property until the youngest child reached 21.

The children were entitled to be brought up in circumstances which bore some sort of relationship to the father’s standard of living. The nature of the child’s home environment provided an obvious baseline.

A child maintenance award could extend beyond the direct expenses of the children and additionally meet the expenses of the mother’s household, to the extent that the mother could not cover those expenses from her own means.

Such an award might be referred to as a Household Expenditure Child Support Award (HECSA). The essential principle was that it was permissible to support the child by supporting the mother.

A household budget of £2.2 million per annum was an appropriate figure for such support.

The child maintenance award was ordered to be secured due to the husband’s previous disobedience.

Pre-nups are no longer the preserve of the rich. Thousands of couples now use them to protect their interests should their relationship break down. While at first glance they may appear unromantic, many couples say a pre-nup brings them closer together as it gives their relationship a firm foundation.

Case citation: Collardeau-Fuchs v Fuchs Family Court [2022] EWFC 135 [2022] 11 WLUK 159 Judge Mostyn J

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