A case concerning the division of over £26m in assets after the breakdown of a relationship has highlighted the growing recognition of nuptial agreements in UK courts.
Despite describing the pre-nuptial agreement as “a piece of sub-optimal drafting” and “not a model of clarity”, HHJ Edward Hess ruled it had been validly entered into and largely upheld its content in the case of IC v AD [2026] EWFC 224.
The case, heard over five days in July 202, centred on a husband who built a highly lucrative career in private equity, becoming Head of Investor Relations at an investment partnership and wife who had largely given up paid employment to care for the family and home. The court heard the pair, who are now in their early forties and had been together since January 2010. They married in February 2012 and had two children. The marriage broke down in May 2024 when the husband issued a divorce application; Judge Hess later determining this was the effective end date of the marriage for section 25 purposes, despite continued cohabitation afterwards.
The dispute arose around the interpretation of a pre-nuptial agreement, which all parties agreed had been entered into voluntarily, after independent legal advice and disclosure. The husband contended that the agreement excluded most sharing claims against his wealth, while the wife argued for a much narrower interpretation.
Despite efforts to remove the agreement from the family home, for which the wife was criticised, the judge found that she was always aware a signed agreement existed and that her earlier reluctance to acknowledge it was strategic. In broad terms, the agreement protected the husband’s pre-marital properties and prevented the wife from making sharing claims against assets held solely in his name. Jointly owned assets, however, were to be shared equally. The agreement also gave the wife the right to remain in the family home on Mesher-style terms until the youngest child completed tertiary education, likely in 2037. Certain investment proceeds originally anticipated by the agreement were likewise intended to be shared
Judge Hess then considered whether fairness required departure from the agreement. Citing Radmacher v Granatino, he emphasised the Supreme Court’s principle that freely entered pre-nuptial agreements should generally be upheld adding that to depart from this agreement beyond the wife’s needs would fail to give proper effect to the Supreme Court’s reasoning.
Neither side had identified any reported case in which a valid pre-nuptial agreement had been displaced for reasons other than need. Although he remained mindful of the statutory factors under the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973, he found no compelling reason to disregard the agreement’s allocation of wealth beyond ensuring that the wife’s needs were properly met. The judge therefore focused on a generous assessment of those needs rather than reopening the sharing exercise.
It was concluded the wife’s reasonable personal spending needs were approximately £13,000 per month. The children’s needs were assessed separately. He accepted that the wife had future earning potential but regarded it as relatively modest compared with the husband’s continuing multi-million-pound annual income. Using a Duxbury-style approach, he capitalised the wife’s spousal maintenance claim at £1 million.
The final order awarded the wife a package worth approximately £3.13 million plus the right to occupy the family home on Mesher terms. She also received child maintenance of £1,000 per child per month, together with school fees and agreed extras. The husband retained the overwhelming majority of the remaining assets, including all of his valuable partnership interests, carried interests and future business opportunities. Apart from child-related payments, the order achieved a clean break between the parties but cost the parties in order of £1m in fees, a consequence he plainly regarded as regrettable.
In his final conclusion, he held that the order “properly respects the terms of the pre-nuptial agreement, meets the wife’s needs appropriately and is fair in all the circumstances.”
