Wealthy wife ordered to pay husband in failed $17 million divorce case play

A wealthy Sydney woman has discovered her husband is not the financial wizard she thought he was in a very expensive divorce case play that spectacularly backfired.

A wealthy woman’s play to get an extra $17 million in her bitter divorce case has backfired, with a court instead ordering she may have to sell her $14 million Sydney mansion to pay her husband more than $1.4 million.

The biggest victory the woman had in the long-running Family Court of Australia case came via a ruling that her husband had spent “excessively” when he outlaid almost $1 million on a wedding to his new wife before their asset split had been finalised.

But it mattered little as the pair fought it out over tens of millions in assets, including grand property holdings, share portfolios, luxury cars and a large art collection.

According to a recently published judgment, the couple had agreed to split their assets, with 53 per cent going to the wife and the husband to receive 47 per cent.

This was paused when the wife launched an appeal in the case and claimed her husband had short-changed her by hiding about $18 million in shares.

The judge ruled the woman had to pay her ex-husband $1.4 million. Picture: iStock

But the investigation that followed revealed the woman had wildly overestimated her husband’s financial abilities.

Instead, a forensic financial report showed her husband had actually lost $10 million on the share market in less than five years.

Before she knew this, the wife told the court her husband had “failed in his disclosure obligations to a deplorable extent”, and took the action in an attempt to increase her share of the asset split.

The initial agreement would have seen her walk away with the $14 million home — with no mortgage attached — plus other valuable assets.

But the appeal process revealed that, thanks to Covid-19 and some objectively bad decisions, the husband had lost more than $10m on the share market since 2019.

It required the court to reevaluate the value of the couple’s asset pool, which put the total at a significantly lower figure.

The husband told the court his share portfolio was worth $3 million.

When the final figure was reached, the court ruled that the wife would have to reimburse her husband by more than $1.4 million and gave her 60 days to hand over the money.

In delivering his reasons for the revised financial situation, Justice Robert Harper told the court it was “probably not realistic nor is it just and equitable” for the wife to keep the $14 million property mortgage-free.

The wife had two minor victories, with Justice Harper ruling that the $856,000 the husband spent on a wedding to his new wife was excessive.

The husband argued “it was reasonable for him to mark the start of a new chapter in his life with a “sliver” of happiness, after ending “an acrimonious marriage…”

But Justice Harper ruled that spending that much of the asset pool before it was split with his ex was well in excess of what was acceptable for the husband to “get on with his life”.

The judge also ordered the husband to repay more than $300,000 in fees he had paid to his new wife.

Justice Harper also made the same ruling in relation to the $200,000 car the husband had bought for his new wife.

The court also heard the husband had bought a massive tax debt that needed to be serviced, which included about $2 million in one year from a gross income of more than $6 million.

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