Heiress fights refugee over divorce share-out

An heiress who married a penniless East European refugee told the Court of Appeal yesterday that her "equal shares" divorce settlement was unfair.

Two judges in lower courts had found that there was "no good reason" to depart from the principle that the wealth of a marriage should be distributed evenly between the parties. But James Turner QC, representing the former wife, told the panel of appeal judges headed by Sir Mark Potter, the head of the Family Division: "It offends against the principles of fairness to treat the wealth in the present case as if it had all been acquired by the joint efforts during the relationship. "The fact is that the husband has made nothing like the contribution that the wife has made to the acquisition of the existing wealth."

Daily Telegraph  February 20, 2008

For the complete atricle in the Daily Telegraph  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/02/20/ndivorce120.xml

For the complete article in the Daily Mail  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=516671&in_page_id=1770

For the complete article in the Evening Standard http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23440058-details/Refugee+husband+lived+off+me+for+years...+but+wants+half+my+fortune/article.do

Judgment was reserved to a later date.