Splitsville News

In this story, Bloomberg.com reports that a UK court upheld a prenuptial agreement between a German heiress and a former banker.  The court found that the agreement was entered into “willingly and knowingly by responsible adults”.  In addition, the court found that the husband–who was challenging the agreement–had a “proper” understanding of it.

While this is a case that happened outside of the US, it goes to show that you should always be careful what you sign as you may very well have to follow through on what you’ve agreed to. Here, all three judges on the British Court of Appeal panel found that the agreement should be upheld.

At the time of marriage, the parties were on fairly equal financial footing.  In all likelihood, then, the prenuptial agreement said that what each party brought to the marriage as her or her own property would remain that person’s property.  For Radmacher that meant just under $90 million in liquid assets as well as “significant minority interests” in two German companies.  Nicolas Granatino, Ms. Radmacher’s now ex-husband, also an heir to a multi-million dollar fortune, was earning 330,000 pounds a year at the time of marriage.  (That’s just over $500,000 US at today’s exchange rate.)

When the lower courts in the UK heard the matter, they awarded 6 million pounds (just under $10,000,000 US) to Mr. Granatino.  Mr. Granatino is now an academic and I’m betting that he earns appreciably less than he did in his banker days….But, a deal is a deal and he’ll be getting less, if anything, from his ex-wife.

Take heed of the advice of London divorce lawyer Emma Hatley: “If anybody signs a pre-nuptial agreement now, they shouldn’t think it’s not worth the paper is written on.”  In other words, be careful what you sign because you may actually have to follow through on it.