Wednesday, 10 June 2009
There's a strange offshoot of the current financial crisis that you couldn't have foreseen a few months ago. The super rich, the preserve of the gnashing divorce lawyer, are staying in relationships.
To the chagrin of several leading Barristers, wealthy couples are gritting their teeth, unpacking their bags and doubtless seething as they slurp their coffee over the breakfast table each morning having halted divorce proceedings.
As the Times reported last month, London's top divorce solicitor Raymond Tooth has actually recommended that couples hold their marriages together, with Sellotape and binding wire if needs be until the recession shows signs of slowing down.
Tooth - also known as Jaws - has an awesome reputation for landing ex-wives huge amounts of money after their divorces from celebrities, Hedge fund managers and Oligarchs in the past.
Notable benefactors to bail out of relationships successfully include Sadie Frost, who scooped a £4m lump sum, a £2m house and a £15,000-a-month allowance from the actor Jude Law and Eimaer Montgomerie, who walked away from her marriage to golfer Colin with £15m in the divorce.
Tooth has been succinct in his advice: - ""Wives would be better now to wait, as the courts are being very wary about awards because of the problem of the ability to make payments," he said. "Hang on in there until times get better".
A divorce is probably the least pleasant experience any relationship can go through, not least for successful men who, due to the nature of the law courts and child support agency, often end up actually owing money once their monthly income has been mauled by their ex. No marriage advice can prepare you for it.
The actor Robin Williams worded the angst and despair particularly well when he said:-
"Ah, yes, divorce ... from the Latin word meaning to rip out a man's genitals through his wallet".
It is this despair that has led to a recent trend amongst men in the UK who feel their relationship may be on rocky ground. They have begun to hoard their liquid assets in secret to keep their wealth protected from lawyers, agencies and their ex wife. At the top end this takes the form of anonymous Swiss bank accounts, and at the lower end of the scale it amounts to burying or hiding cash to be dug up when the dust settles.
In the middle a new development has occurred: - prepaid debit cards. These card (going under names such as the Eclipse Card), which can be loaded in secret via credit card transfer or even over
the phone, are being used by men as a secret nest egg. A percentage of each month's salary is siphoned off onto the card, away from the watchful eye of the spouse or any circling vultures (sorry, divorce lawyers). Like the ‘hole in the ground' idea, the cards can be secreted away until things quieten down after the divorce, at which point the now free gentleman can spend his free cash on Xboxes, beer and pizza to his heart's content. http://www.eclipsecard.co.uk/eclipse_card/Discreet_payments
Illegal? Unlikely. Immoral? Almost certainly. But in the field of divorce the battle lines were drawn a long time before the relationships turned sour, and for any man who has worked hard for his money, clawing back a secret stash after a divorce is the least he can do. http://www.eclipsecard.co.uk/eclipse_card/general_benefits
Article Source: http://www.ArticleBlast.com
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