In the greatest financial award ever made by UK family courts, Dubai’s ruler was ordered to pay at least 554 million pounds ($734 million) to his estranged wife and their children.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum was ordered by a London judge to pay Princess Haya Bint al-Hussein 251.5 million pounds in three months to compensate security and stolen things such as jewellery and apparel.
The judge also ordered him to make annual payments of about 11 million pounds toward his children’s educational bills, which will be backed by a 290 million-pound bank guarantee. Backdated payments and a learning fund are included in the remaining millions.
In a judgement issued Tuesday, Judge Philip Moor stated that this would allow Princess Haya with a “clean break” from the sheikh following their divorce. He claimed that the sheikh, who did not testify in the case, had brought the abnormally large security award against himself when another judge discovered that he ordered the hacking of her and her legal team’s phones.
Because of annual security expenses that he must pay directly to his children once they finish school, the total sum the sheikh will have to pay to his family is likely to be significantly greater.
In a statement, the sheikh stated he “has always guaranteed that his children are supplied for.” Princess Haya’s lawyers declined to comment on the decision.
Judges in London’s family courts are often willing to order a more equal portion of a couple’s assets, making them a favourite destination for high-value legal battles. The greatest publicly known judge-ordered payout in a divorce before Tuesday’s verdict was 450 million pounds to the wife of billionaire Farkhad Akhmedov — though the two settled for less than a third of that amount.
Several explosive allegations and judgements concerning the Dubai royal family have been heard in London’s courts during the last two years.
According to the judgement, Princess Haya said she was “under siege” and that the sheikh’s observation of her “could not be more intrusive and upsetting.” The only financial claim she made for herself was for security and some misplaced personal belongings.
Judge Moor awarded the family almost 5 million pounds per year to spend on vacations, including private jet flights, as part of the settlement. Annually, they spend approximately 300,000 pounds on their horses and other pets, as well as 39,000 pounds on the installation of two trampolines.
During the hearing, Princess Haya stated that relying on periodic payments would place the family under “terrible additional burden” because they would “always be living under the shadow of future lawsuit.” Judge Moor determined that she can be trusted with the lump-sum payment she has been awarded.
He acknowledged the “truly opulent and unprecedented standard of living enjoyed by these parties in Dubai” and said he needed to come to “a reasonable conclusion while remembering that the exceptional wealth and remarkable standard of living enjoyed by these children during the marriage takes this case entirely out of the ordinary.”
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