Dubai princess gets $720M in divorce decree
LONDON — A British judge Tuesday shed light on the lavish lifestyle of Dubai’s ruling family by awarding a record-breaking settlement worth more than $720 million to a princess in her custody battle with the ruler of the emirate.
The settlement concludes a long-running and acrimonious case that has played out in British courts between Princess Haya Bint al-Hussein, 47, daughter of the late King Hussein of Jordan, and her ex-husband, multibillionaire Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum.
The court heard details of the vast luxury in which the princess lived before she fled Dubai with her two children, Zayed, 9, and Jalila, 14. The case also exposed a dark side to the glittering image of the Dubai royal family, including Mohammed’s abusive behavior toward his family, which prompted Haya to divorce him and flee to Britain in 2019, saying she feared for their lives.
The judge agreed that she faced genuine threats and included more than $13 million in the settlement to cover the costs of security, including armored cars and cyberprotection. In October, the court ruled that Mohammed had used Israeli company NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware to hack the phones of Haya and members of her inner circle.
The court also heard evidence that Mohammed had abducted and taken back to Dubai two of his daughters, Princesses Latifa and Shamsa. Mohammed reportedly also sought to buy a property neighboring one of Haya’s homes and issued threats against her life, including a text message that said, “We can find you anywhere.”
“The main threat they face is from [Mohammed], not from outside sources,” said High Court Justice Philip Moor.
The award comprises a lump sum of $333 million to cover living costs as well as annual payments for the children’s education and security, to be secured with a guarantee of $385 million — making this one of the biggest custody settlements in British legal history.
In justifying the amounts, Moor cited the need to preserve the “truly opulent and unprecedented standard of living enjoyed by these parties.”
In addition to security, the amounts are intended to cover the costs of the upkeep of Haya’s two homes, near Kensington Palace in London and in the suburban town of Egham in Surrey, as well as vacations, clothes, horses and staff salaries. The costs were diligently itemized — $500,000 for food during vacations, $368,000 to maintain three horses and other pets for the children, and $51,000 to replace two trampolines they had owned at their palace in Dubai.
Haya originally sought more than $1.1 billion, but the judge reduced many of her claims. A request for $42 million to replace the haute couture wardrobe she was forced to leave behind in Dubai was cut to $1.3 million because, the judge said, he was unable to put a price on the clothing he was shown in a video.
A request for $26 million worth of jewelry was reduced to $18 million. A budget for private planes for vacations was reduced from $2.3 million to $1.3 million. Moor said he did not believe children should go on vacation too often, especially when they have school examinations coming up.
Among the requests the judge rejected was the cost of a car collection for Haya’s son because, he noted, it wasn’t necessary for a 9-year-old to own cars.