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Heiress ordered to pay 'unprecedented' £5m in divorce case
Practice area: Family Law
The heiress to a toy empire has been ordered to pay £5 million of her own assets to her estranged husband after he lost millions from his property portfolio during the credit crunch.
Elena Bowes Marano and Peter Marano split in February 2007, but by the time they officially divorced in March 2009, his company had gone from being £88 million in profit to £10 million in debt.
When Mrs Justice Eleanor King split the matrimonial assets in half, she also ordered Ms Marano to pay £5 million from her own money to Mr Marano.
Although the heiress appealed against this, the ruling has now been upheld at the Court of Appeal and she will now be required to honour the payment.
Legal experts have called the outcome as "an unprecedented level of liability for a UK
divorce case".
The recession has had a significant impact on divorce cases, with Unbiased.co.uk reporting last year that 36 per cent of solicitors have been asked to renegotiate settlements in recent times as a result of the changing values of assets.
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