Murdoch millions and Zuckerberg date nights: Prenups are routine for the super-rich⊠are we next?
As media mogul Rupert Murdoch announces plans to marry for the fifth time, Katie Rosseinsky speaks to experts about the wacky world of super-rich prenuptial agreements. Are they instant romance-killers? Or would you be plain stupid not to have one in place?
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They might share their happy news through an Instagram photoshoot, they might pose for an OK! cover or, like nonagenarian groom-to-be Rupert Murdoch, they might give an exclusive interview to a newspaper they just happen to own. However a celebrity chooses to announce their engagement, though, you can safely bet that behind the scenes, teams of lawyers will be hard at work assembling a prenuptial agreement â a legal document laying out exactly how the new coupleâs assets will be split in the event of, well, their split.
âWith ultra-wealthy clients... there will be such complex legalities and trust affairs that itâs unimaginable not to have a cast iron prenup in place,â explains Charlotte Leyshon, director of Lux Family Law; as a trainee solicitor, she was part of the team employed by Meg Mathews in her divorce from Noel Gallagher. A couple must be upfront about all their financial arrangements (the impetus, no surprise, usually comes from the wealthier half) â and, when theyâre getting ready for their big day, must think about where their relationship might end.
Billionaire media mogul Murdoch proposed to Ann Lesley Smith on St Patrickâs Day; he gave the scoop to The New York Post shortly afterwards. He and fourth wife Jerry Hall, who divorced last summer, allegedly had an agreement in place that kept the succession plan for his media empire intact. Hall is thought to have received a multimillion-pound settlement, as well as Holmwood House, the former coupleâs Oxfordshire mansion (âDonât worry, Rupert Murdoch remains rich despite finalising financial details of Jerry Hall divorce,â film industry bible Deadline assured its readers last summer, tongue firmly in cheek). Also in the headlines recently? Reports of Gisele Bundchen and Tom Bradyâs âironcladâ prenup, which supposedly allowed their divorce to be settled quickly.
Richard Hogwood is a partner and lawyer at Stewarts; their divorce and family team has previously represented the likes of Guy Ritchie and Andrew Lloyd Webber. He often tells clients to think of a prenup as, ironically, âalmost like an anti-lawyer insurance policy. In the same way that you hope your house isnât flooded or burned down, you hope your marriage works out, [but] even if it doesnât work out, you donât want to waste lots of money on litigationâ. In other words, itâs a way of (hopefully) avoiding a costly legal battle further down the line. âYou spend a lot less on lawyers if youâve thrashed it all out before you even get going, than at the end of a marriage, when everyone thinks everythingâs up for grabs,â agrees Leyshon.
While theyâve been common in America and in mainland Europe for decades, prenups are ârelatively new thingsâ in the UK, says Henry Hood, senior partner and head of the family department at Hunters Law. For a long time, he says, âin England they were simply not worth the paper they were written onâ. That changed in 2010, thanks to Radmacher v Granatino, a landmark divorce case in which a German heiress named Katrin Radmacher attempted to block her Italian ex-husband Nicolas from accessing her fortune. Although prenups are still ânot, strictly speaking, bindingâ, the judgment from the case means you can expect âthat the court will uphold an agreement if it has been properly entered into and the impact of it does not cause great unfairnessâ, Hood explains.
If the terms of the prenup meet the needs of the couple, it will usually stand up. Need, though, can be difficult to quantify. âItâs a question of whatâs a reasonable figure for a house?â says Alistair Myles, founding partner at Ribet Myles LLP. âDo they need ÂŁ5m, ÂŁ20m? Do you need a swimming pool?â Divorce cases that usually get into the press, he adds, âare normally the ones where one party is saying, âletâs stick to the prenupâ, and the other one is saying, âwell, hang on a second â thatâs not fairââ.
For second marriages and beyond, a prenup can âput to bed any concernsâ about what a new spouse might inherit. âIf there are grown children who are expecting various things to come their way... the stepmother is a threat, unless the potential they might have [to make] a claim after divorce is parked and sorted out,â Hood says.
A couple might not even be wealthy quite yet â they might be anticipating a major inheritance, or plan on making a mint further down the line. âEntrepreneurs who think that theyâre going to make a lot of money in the future might want to invest in one as well,â says Rebecca Cockcroft, who heads the family team at Payne Hicks Beach. âA spouse might think, Iâm going to make ÂŁ100m â I donât want ÂŁ50m of that to go to my husband or wife on a divorce,â she adds. Some might want custody of a beloved dog if things fall apart. âI have a running joke with a colleague about whether one can or should include pets in a prenup,â Hogwood says. âIt has been done a couple of times, [but] itâs not the most common thing.â A jet-setting couple âwith connections in different countriesâ might end up with an âomnibusâ document, filled with advice for different places. âThe idea is no one should be incentivised to divorce in one place rather than the other.â
If an agreement was signed under duress, it is more likely to be challenged â lawyers recommend that it âshould be executed at least 28 days before any wedding and ideally before then,â Cockcroft explains. âYou want to start negotiating it months in advance so that you donât run out of time, and before any invites go out.â Of course, things donât always pan out that way. âI did a case years ago, where they were getting married on the Saturday and they had a big evening party for the guests the night before at Babington House,â Myles recalls. âI think the husband-to-be suddenly whipped out this piece of paper from his lawyers and gave it to his wife to sign. Obviously, that one did not get upheld.â
Prenups havenât always had the best reputation. The phrase still conjures visions of spouses being left with nothing â but that stereotype isnât necessarily fair. âI think the public perception is often that itâs there for the wealthy person to take advantage of the less wealthy person, but the reality is... the more generous you are, the more protection youâre ultimately likely to get from this document,â Hogwood says. âEveryoneâs a winner if youâre a bit more generous at the beginning â your insurance policy is likely to be more of use than if youâre too mean.â If an agreement is obviously unfair, âthen thereâs no point in having it... you might as well rip it upâ, Leyshom adds.
There might still be room for some unusual provisions, though. Trawl through any online round-up of celebrity prenups and the phrase âinfidelity clauseâ crops up over again; the likes of Justin Timberlake and Michael Douglas are rumoured to have agreed to pay their wives a lump sum if they cheat. âIâve seen prenups, but not for a while, where [the couple] try to make different provisions based on whatever the reason for the marriage breakdown has been,â says Myles. Terms like these are more common in American settlements but are ânot hugely enforceableâ under English law, which has now âdone away with any kind of fault-based claimâ. They might just create yet more conflict further down the line. âWhat if they donât agree if someoneâs being unfaithful?â Hogwood notes. âDo you end up then having to have separate court proceedings just on this point? [...] The purpose of this document is to reduce conflict rather than create satellite litigations on other points.â
In the US, these âlifestyleâ clauses might refer to anything from drug abuse to gross stipulations about weight gain. After getting engaged to Jessica Simpson, NFL player Tony Romo allegedly came up with a prenup clause stating that if she exceeded 135lb, she would then owe him $500,000 for every pound above that amount (the couple never married â I canât imagine why). Some are rather sweet. Priscilla Chan requested that she has one âdate nightâ and 100 minutes of time alone every week with husband Mark Zuckerberg. During that time, they arenât allowed on Facebook â we can only hope this has since been updated to preclude hanging out in the Metaverse with Nick Clegg. For Leyshon, this specificity reflects how prenups are viewed in the States: âThey are seen as contracts, pure and simple.â
In the run-up to a wedding, lawyers can sometimes feel like ghosts at the feast, asking couples to consider the breakdown of their relationship when theyâre just getting started. âSome people feel really strongly about it, and just think itâs really unromantic and unfair,â says Cockcroft. âThey simply donât want to sign one â so you can have some people who just find it quite a repugnant concept.â For the uber-wealthy, these arrangements will be more âroutineâ, Leyshom explains, but for âfootballers, rugby players, high-profile peopleâ, these discussions can feel more sensitive. âYouâre working towards this really happy, special day coming together. And then you have to kind of drill into â âwhat would you, the stronger party, give me, the weaker party, if we split up?â And it really can cause quite a lot of upset.â Ultimately, though, she encourages clients to be pragmatic. If you didnât have a will in place, she says, âyouâd be seen as being quite reckless and sillyâ.
Indeed, prenups are slowly becoming more widespread â even among those of us with a bang-average net worth. In 2022, Hogwoodâs firm saw a 51.2 per cent increase in enquiries compared to the previous year, while recent YouGov data found that 47 per cent of women see prenups as a good idea, versus 38 per cent of men (which rather puts paid to Kanyeâs âGold Diggerâ lyrics). âI think more people are recognising that theyâre not scary, and theyâre not just for celebrities,â Hogwood says. â[Like] having a will in place or lasting power of attorney, it is just one of those slightly boring life admin things that we should at least think about,â he adds. Perhaps in a decade or so, theyâll no longer be the preserve of multi-millionaires â they might be as normal as setting up a Splitwise account with your partner.
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