FIVE THINGS ABOUT DIVORCE IN ITALY

1 WHAT HAPPENED

Divorce should not be seen as a “setup for life,” Italy’s supreme court said, in a landmark ruling that strips divorced spouses of the automatic right to hefty maintenance payments. Divorcees who have independent means or can work will not automatically receive payments to retain the same “tenor of life” after divorce, the judges of the Court of Cassation said.

2 THE CASE

The ruling was initiated by the case of American businesswoman Lisa Lowenstein and her ex-husband Vittorio Grilli, a former Italian minister of economy and finance. The couple had an acrimonious divorce in 2013. Grilli, 59, gave Lowenstein a monthly maintenance payment of as much as $3 million, but legal wrangling continued as she attempted to make Grilli pay for heavy debts she had run up.

3 THE PROBLEM WITH INCOME

Lowenstein appealed to the supreme court in 2014 to receive maintenance payments for life. The Milan court of appeal had rejected her application on the grounds that her income tax returns were incomplete and her former husband’s income had “contracted.”

4 THE COURT’S RATIONALE

The judges said times had changed. They also said an obligation for former spouses to pay high maintenance could constitute “an obstacle to starting a new family,” which is a right guaranteed by the European Court of Human Rights.

5 EXPECTED IMPACT

The ruling is expected to change how family law is interpreted in the country and could end huge settlements, such as the $2.1M monthly cheque that Veronica Lario, second wife of media magnate Silvio Berlusconi, obtained when they split up in 2009 amid the “bunga-bunga” sex party scandal.