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Wife in Britain’s bitterest divorce battle would ‘settle for £300m’

As of yesterday, the multi-million pound battle between Michelle and Scot Young is back at the High Court.  The four week trial has been kicked off with the ex-wife listing the couple’s past wealth and claiming she would settle for £300m and the cost of all legal expenses.

Mrs Young also insisted that her husband has hidden his fortune offshore. She said that the maintenance payments supposedly given to her by her ex’s friend came from the sale of personal possessions from one of the couple’s former properties.

Michelle Young went on to describe the couple’s luxury lifestyle prior to the break up. She claims her former partner owns assets worth “a few billion at least”. However, Scot Young is adamant that he is penniless and bankrupt.

Mrs Young claims that the couple had “vast estates…staff.” They went on three or four foreign holidays a year, staying in villas and presidential suites. Michelle Young also talked about how she and her husband ate at a Raymond Blanc restaurant twice a week.

“We had a chandelier in our drawing room. The other chandelier sits in the White House,” she said. “They were valuable assets.” According to the mother of two, the couple had also talked about buying a “very expensive helicopter” to fly between their homes near Oxford and London.

Rex Howling QC, acting for Michelle Young, alleged that Mr Young secretly channelled £100,000 to his estranged wife and the couple’s two children through a high-profile businessman in order to pretend he was penniless.

Michelle Young is convinced that “There was a vast fortune hidden”. “This has dragged through the courts for seven years, mostly because of my husband’s lack of disclosure and playing the system. He used offshore vehicles and many advisers and accountants to layer these assets.”

She was questioned by Scot Young, who is representing himself.  Celebrity businessmen, such as Sir Philip Green, who owns Topshop, Sir Tom Hunter, a major property investor, Harold Tillman, the boss of fashion brand Jaeger, and restaurateur Richard Caring, owner of The Ivy, Annabel’s and Soho House in London, are to be appearing as witnesses in the next four weeks.

The blog team at Stowe is a group of writers based across our family law offices who share their advice on the wellbeing and emotional aspects of divorce or separation from personal experience. As well as pieces from our family law solicitors, guest contributors also regularly contribute to share their knowledge.

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Comment(1)

  1. Andrew says:

    I’d settle for £300m too if somebody would just give me the money. And I wouldn’t bother with a divorce.

    Joking apart: I read somewhere, perhaps here, that she had subpoena’ed Sir P Green et al. I hope they were given conduct money to get to court, because if they weren’t they don’t have to show. I have never served a subpoens on anyone except a witness who needed it to get time off work. Examination in chief of your own witness who did not want to be there is a very nervy business.

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