A London court docket awarded the previous spouse of Dubai’s ruler a divorce settlement of more than £550 million, equal to greater than $728 million, in a uncommon case that pulled again the curtain on the luxurious life-style of one of many world’s richest and most discreet households.
Princess
Haya bint Al Hussein,
a daughter of Jordan’s late King Hussein, left Dubai for the U.Ok. in 2019 with the 2 younger kids she had with Sheikh
Mohammed bin Rashid
al Maktoum. She stated she feared for her life after Sheikh Mohammed had beforehand ordered that two of his different kids be pressured again to the United Arab Emirates. Princess Haya later found that Sheikh Mohammed, who can be the prime minister of the U.A.E., had divorced her months earlier underneath Shariah legislation with out her figuring out.
Princess Haya, 47 years previous, sued Sheikh Mohammed, 72, within the Excessive Court docket in London. She was awarded a lump sum of £251.5 million, to be paid inside three months, and annual funds together with for the upkeep of an £87.5 million property close to Kensington Palace in West London and about £277,000 for present horses.
The court docket additionally ordered Sheikh Mohammed to fund budgets for his or her two kids, ages 9 and 14, together with for schooling and safety. The choose stated he decided the kids confronted the best safety risk from their father, in addition to the threats of terrorism and kidnapping given their standing.
The court docket discovered cheap proof that Sheikh Mohammed was “the possible originator” of the hacking throughout the proceedings of telephones belonging to Princess Haya, members of her employees and not less than two of her attorneys, Nicholas Manners and Baroness Shackleton of Belgravia, a sitting member of the Home of Lords. The court docket beforehand discovered that Sheikh Mohammed had ordered and orchestrated the kidnapping of two of his different kids, pressured them to return to Dubai and detained them there.
The Dubai Media Workplace didn’t reply to a request for remark. A spokesman for Sheikh Mohammed informed the Related Press in an announcement that the chief has all the time ensured his kids are offered for. “The court docket has now made its ruling on funds and he doesn’t intend to remark additional,” the assertion stated.
Sheikh Mohammed is a serious determine in worldwide horse racing and breeding, and has been an everyday visitor of Queen Elizabeth on the annual Royal Ascot horse races. He has intensive property holdings within the U.Ok., together with a number of nation estates, although the road is usually blurred between his private holdings and people of the city-state he inherited management of from his older brother.
Ought to Sheikh Mohammed resolve to not adhere to the court docket’s ruling, attorneys for the princess will possible pursue enforcement, in line with authorized specialists. At that time, the ruler may attempt to declare sovereign immunity, although dragging out the dispute may danger his worldwide status, they are saying.
The choose awarded Princess Haya roughly £13.7 million in compensation for misplaced jewellery and £1 million for high fashion. The choose additionally dominated that Sheikh Mohammed ought to make a roughly £5.3 million cost on the princess’ house close to Kensington Palace now, as an alternative of in 2026, and that he ought to pay about £1.9 million for a kitchen extension, pizza oven and kitchen curtains within the princess’ house.
“I remind myself that cash was no object throughout the marriage,” the choose wrote within the ruling, including that the associated fee to renovate the London house “was many instances that when the property was not practically as central to the kids’s lives as it’s as we speak.”
Write to Allison Prang at allison.prang@wsj.com and Stephen Kalin at stephen.kalin@wsj.com
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Appeared within the December 22, 2021, print version as ‘Dubai Chief’s Divorce Deal Tops $728 Million.’