UK divorce case turns on validity of marriage

A UK hedgie is fighting to keep the bulk of his $1.3 billion fortune in a divorce case that will turn on whether he was really married.

Asif Aziz (near left), founder and chief executive officer of Criterion Capital, says he was never married to Tagilde Aziz (far left) under English law, in a case that lawyers say is one of the largest divorce cases ever in a UK court.

Tagilde Aziz counters she is the mother of his four children and that he “presented to the world” that they were married.

The dispute in a London court centers on whether an event that took place in Malawi in 2002, and a previous ceremony in Wimbledon in 1997, were valid weddings.

Tagilde Aziz says she was already pregnant when they held the London “nikah,” a religious ceremony, at the insistence of his family. Five years later, she says they had another ceremony at the home of his uncle in Malawi with a “lavish feast.”

Asif Aziz, for his part, argues that “no ceremony took place at all.” He calls the Malawi affair an excuse to obtain “a certificate of convenience” that would allow them to get a passport for a child that they had “informally adopted.”

“The parties have never been married, therefore there’s no marriage to be dissolved by this court,” Richard Harrison, the lawyer representing Asif Aziz, said at a hearing last week. “I mean not married as a matter of English law.”

Tagilde Aziz’s lawyer declined to comment.

The case had been held in private until the latest hearing because disputes over the validity of a marriage must be in public under UK law.

The ultimate ruling on whether the couple was married will be a big factor in Tagilde Aziz’s final recovery, according to Graham Coy, a London divorce lawyer not involved in the case.

“If he were able to satisfy a court that they were not married, the wife would still get something, but it would probably be substantially reduced,” said Coy.