Millionaire awaits appeal ruling in fight with estranged wife over £140m fortune

Updated
Randy Work divorce hearing
Randy Work divorce hearing

A millionaire financier is waiting for a ruling by Court of Appeal judges after complaining that his estranged wife walked away with too much money following the breakdown of their marriage.

Randy Work asked appeal judges to consider his case after complaining that a High Court judge did not give him a big enough share of a fortune totalling more than £140 million.

Mr Justice Holman concluded that Mandy Gray should get a half share after analysing the case at a trial in the Family Division of the High Court in London, but Mr Work says the judge did not recognise the ''special contribution'' he had made to the creation of the fortune.

He says he should get a 61% share and his estranged wife 39%.

Three judges, Sir Terence Etherton, Lady Justice King and Mr Justice Moylan, examined legal argument at a Court of Appeal hearing in London over two days earlier this year. They are due to produce a ruling on Tuesday.

Sir Terence has described the case as ''important''.

Mr Justice Holman said in a ruling in March 2015 that he had to consider the ''specialness'' required before concluding that a contribution to marital wealth was ''special''.

He said some judges had referred to a ''special contribution'' possessing the ''quality of genius'' in earlier rulings, but added: ''I personally find that a difficult, and perhaps unhelpful, word in this context.

''To my mind, the word 'genius' tends to be overused and is properly reserved for Leonardo da Vinci, Mozart, Einstein and others like them.''

He said ''hard work alone'' was not enough and added: ''It is clear also that a successful claim to a special contribution requires some exceptional and individual quality in the spouse concerned. Being in the right place at the right time or benefiting from a period of boom is not enough.

''It may one day fall for consideration whether a very highly paid footballer, who is very good at his job but may be no more skilful than past greats, such as Stanley Matthews or Bobby Charlton, makes a special contribution or is merely the lucky beneficiary of the colossal payments now made possible by the sale of television rights.''

Mr Justice Holman said Mr Work and Ms Gray had been ''two strong and equal partners'' over 20 years and Ms Gray had been a ''good wife'' and ''home-maker''.

He suggested that without her contribution, Mr Work, who worked for a Dallas-based private equity firm called Lone Star, would not have been able to ''amass the wealth''.

The judge heard that the couple split after Ms Gray had an affair with their ''personal physiotherapist''.

He said they had spent nearly £3 million on lawyers during a ''titanic battle'' over the division of money.

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