Wife should get to keep more of family fortune after divorcing banker husband who gave her £80m to escape threat of inheritance tax, Supreme Court hears

Daily Mail​

30-04-2025

A wife who received nearly £80 million so her banker husband could avoid potentially paying inheritance tax should be able to keep a larger share of his fortune, the Supreme Court has heard.
Clive Standish, 70, a sheep-farming tycoon and former CFO of UBS, married Anna Standish, 55, in December 2005, but the couple separated in 2020 after a 15-year marriage during which they had two children.
Mr Standish transferred assets to his wife in 2017, expecting her to place the money in a trust 'primarily for the benefit' of their two children, his lawyers told a hearing in London.
When she issued divorce proceedings in 2020, she still held the assets in her name.
In 2022, High Court judge Mr Justice Moor split the family's total wealth of £132 million by awarding Mr Standish £87 million and Mrs Standish £45 million.
Mr Standish appealed against this decision, arguing that the majority of the money, including the £80 million of assets that he transferred, was earned before the marriage.
Court of Appeal judges ruled last year that Mrs Standish's share should be reduced to £25 million.
Mr Standish is British, but moved to Australia in 1976, before moving back to England with his family in 2010.
He had retired in 2007, living off the profits of a £28m sheep farm in Australia, while the couple enjoyed life in 18-bedroom mansion Moundsmere Manor, set in 83 acres of land in Hampshire on the site of an original manor once owned by Henry VIII.
This situation left him open to a potentially huge inheritance tax hit when prospective changes were announced in 2016, affecting anyone with a British domicile of origin returning to the UK from a country they had made their new permanent home.
Lord Faulks, for Mrs Standish, said in written submissions to the Supreme Court on Wednesday: 'The perverse effect of the judgment of the Court of Appeal is that the wife has almost no entitlement to share in assets that, during the marriage and by the express intention underlying the husband's gift, she came to own.'
He said Mr Standish had made the assets shared property when he gave them to his wife, and the value must therefore be split equally.
Mrs Standish is entitled to a higher share because she contributed to the wealth by accepting the assets as a gift, and because it was for the benefit of their two children, the barrister added.
He said: 'If left uncorrected, the judgment of the Court of Appeal will have significant implications in a considerable number of cases, including those in which one spouse has gifted or transferred assets to the other for all sorts of reasons.'
Tim Bishop KC, for Mr Standish, said in written submissions that the asset transfer should not be viewed as shared property because it was not given to Mrs Standish for her sole benefit.
He said: 'The gift made Mrs Standish the legal and beneficial owner but in no sense was it unconditional in the context of their marriage.
'Rather, it was made for a very specific purpose which was not sharing; it was about avoiding potential inheritance tax in the event of Mr Standish's death before his return to Australia, and was primarily for the benefit of the children.'
He asked the court to dismiss the appeal and take into account the fact that his intention of having the money placed into a trust for his children was never carried out.
Mr Bishop also described Mrs Standish's position of having contributed to the wealth of the assets by accepting them as a gift as 'tenuous and unconvincing'.
He said: 'Acceptance of a gift cannot be seen as an endeavour by the donee.'
The hearing before the Supreme Court president Lord Reed, Lord Lloyd-Jones, Lord Burrows, Lord Stephens and Lady Simler will conclude on Thursday, with a judgment expected at a later date.