You’re no genius, judge tells banker as he orders him to share £180m assets with ex-wife
AN AMERICAN financier who claimed his work was so touched by “genius” that he should not be forced to give his estranged wife half their £180 million fortune has been told by the Court of Appeal there was nothing exceptional about his contribution to the marriage.
Randy Work had claimed he should have to give Mandy Gray no more than 39 per cent of his assets because he had made a “special contribution” to the creation of the couple’s wealth.
The 49-year-old financier used the word “genius” in describing how he had made £7 billion for an American private equity firm, Lone Star.
When the couple’s marriage fell apart after they moved to England in 2008, Mr Work asked the courts to set aside the provision of the Matrimonial Causes Act requiring a divorced couple’s wealth to be divided equally.
This was rejected in March 2015 by Mr Justice Holman, who ruled that Ms Gray, 48, should receive half his fortune. He said some judges had referred to a “special contribution” possessing the “quality of genius” in earlier rulings, but “genius” could not be applied in this case. He ruled that “benefiting from a period of boom is not enough” to claim that he had made a “special contribution”.
Now the Court of Appeal has dismissed Mr Work’s appeal against that decision. Sir Terence Etherton, Lady Justice King and Mr Justice Moylan agreed that Mr Work had failed to show he had made a “special contribution” based on “some exceptional and individual quality”.
Lawyers said that if Mr Work had won his appeal it might have opened the way to stay-at-home wives being discriminated against in divorce cases.
Ryan Giggs, the footballer, will also argue that he made a “special contribution” to the creation of wealth during his marriage, a preliminary hearing at the High Court in London was told. He and Stacey Giggs are embroiled in a fight over their assets following the breakdown of their relationship.