Very often, HNW divorces involve valuable business interests. It may be that the parties wish to remain working in a business they have built up together, otherwise one of the spouses will retain the business and the other will receive different assets of an equivalent value.
Business interests can be difficult to value with certainty and it is not uncommon for the business owner to downplay its success or future prospects to minimise the value of the shareholdings in the divorce proceedings.
Expert accountancy advice will almost always be needed to help the parties, or the court, to arrive at a fair value for business assets, taking into account a range of issues such as tax implications and liquidity.
Philanthropic ventures
Sometimes wealthy couples will have set up philanthropic ventures such as charitable foundations during their marriage. This gives rise to a need to consider whether both individuals can continue to be involved in the same way, usually as trustees, or whether one or both needs to step back from their role.
Much will depend on the extent to which the separation is amicable or not, and whether the two spouses can set aside any personal differences and continue to work together to support the aims of their charitable work.
In the case of a family charity, the couple may look, for example, to bring adult children on board as trustees. More likely, a couple will look to separate their charitable affairs, involving either a transfer of funds to set up a new charitable foundation or donation of part of a settlement.
One such example is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. When the couple announced their August 2021 divorce, they said they would continue to jointly run their charity for a two-year trial period to see whether they could continue to work together effectively as co-chairs, with an agreement that if they felt unable to do so, Melinda would resign her position as co-chair.
It has been reported in May 2024 that she has now resigned from the Gates foundation, receiving $12.5bn from the funds for her separate charitable work.
Emotions and privacy
How the parties feel about each other is a very significant factor influencing how the financial aspects of the divorce will be resolved.
Where spouses have separated on bad terms and in some cases are unwilling or unable to speak to each other, the legal process can be the only channel they have to express how they feel about each other (in most cases through their lawyers).
There is a much higher likelihood that one of the spouses in a high-conflict divorce will apply to the court to secure the maximum possible settlement for themselves, even where this is far beyond their needs.
