Former INXS supervisor wins battle to assert £14m extra in divorce from SAS main ex | EUROtoday

A former rock band supervisor has gained a £14m three-way Appeal Court battle together with her SAS main ex-husband and the estranged multimillionaire mum who “hates” her.

Australian former INXS supervisor turned rich businesswoman Maria-Christina Copinger-Symes married British SAS main James Copinger-Symes, 57, in 1998 and arrange dwelling with their 4 youngsters in a home in Chelsea, estimated to be value over £3m.

Ms Copinger-Symes, 54, is a part of the rich Perez de la Sala dynasty, which made its £550m-plus fortune in transport, however for years has been badly estranged from them and was even banned from her dad’s funeral in 2022.

Her mum Felicite Perez De La Sala and three siblings’ emotions in the direction of her have been described by a choose as being ones of “hate” resulting from her taking sides towards them in an earlier courtroom battle in Singapore over household wealth.

The couple cut up in 2022, with the spouse agreeing a courtroom order – authorised by a choose – underneath which she would pay her ex £1.2m, leaving her with £5.25m.

But the household ended up locked in a three-way battle after the spouse discovered that her mum had secretly gifted her son-in-law round £27.6m of household cash after they cut up.

She mentioned she ought to be handed round £14m of that money and in August 2024 gained a Family Court ruling, overturning the monetary order within the divorce on the idea that the pre-planned money present amounted to “material non-disclosure” by her ex.

But her mum and ex went on to battle that call within the Court of Appeal, arguing that the present was “non-matrimonial” and would by no means have been made in any respect if the spouse was capable of share it.

Today, the case returned to courtroom the place three senior judges dismissed Maj Copinger-Symes’ and Ms Perez de la Sala’s appeals, paving the best way for the spouse to put declare to a share of her mum’s big money present.

In her ruling, Lady Justice Andrews mentioned it was proper that the divorce order be put aside and reconsidered within the gentle of the husband’s “non-disclosure” of the £27.6m present.

Keeping the actual fact of an anticipated present quiet meant that the spouse and the choose then coping with the case got a “distorted picture” of the ex-couple’s particular person wants post-divorce, she mentioned.

“The suppression of the information about the largesse that the husband knew the wife’s parents intended to bestow upon him meant that not only the wife and her representatives, but the court, were presented with a seriously distorted picture of the parties’ respective financial circumstances and needs,” she mentioned.

“The order, and the court’s approval of it, was premised on that distorted picture. The information was plainly material.”

The courtroom heard that Maria-Christina Copinger-Symes is the daughter of a department of the Australian De La Sala transport household, together with her dad and mom proudly owning a £300m share of the household fortune.

She married Major Copinger-Symes in Sydney in 1998, earlier than the couple arrange dwelling in London, with Maria appearing for a time as European supervisor of Aussie rock superstars INXS, led by tragic singer Michael Hutchence.

She now has profitable enterprise pursuits, together with proudly owning high-end scent and candle firm Lilou et Loic.

In a ruling on the Central Family Court in 2024, Judge Edward Hess set out the background to Ms Copinger-Symes’ feud together with her dad and mom, saying: “The fact that the almost total estrangement existed from 2017 onwards is not in dispute.

“[Her parents] Bobby and Felicite determined by late 2017 to withdraw all monetary and emotional assist for the spouse. They each swore statutory declarations explaining why the spouse didn’t function of their respective wills.”

He said the family split was based on a row over ownership of a London property and what her mum in a letter called “your final betrayal of the entire household” during a fight in Singapore over the family fortune.

However, their relationship with the husband was completely different. He had “subsumed her place as a member of the household” and his in-laws took his side against the wife in the divorce.

That relationship led to Mr Copinger-Symes being handed the £27.6m gift after their divorce.

The judge in 2024 went on to order that the divorce settlement should be overturned and reconsidered, after finding that Major Copinger-Symes must have known he was in line to get the gift before he signed the March 2022 divorce settlement with his ex-wife, and so was guilty of “non-disclosure”.

At the Court of Appeal in December however, the husband’s barrister Richard Todd KC argued that the family judge got it wrong and should not have opened the gate for the wife to tap into the money gifted to him by her mother.

“The choose described the perspective of the spouse’s mom, father and three siblings in the direction of the spouse as being one among ‘hate’,” he said.

“It was manifest that they didn’t want her to learn from the fortune which had been retained.

“It was accepted that the gift was non-matrimonial. There was no basis on which the gift should be invaded.

“The spouse anticipated the husband to be paid hundreds of thousands by her household. It was cheap to deduce that her expectation was that the husband could be paid within the tens of hundreds of thousands.”

Dakis Hagen KC, for the mother, also asked for the ruling below to be overturned, telling the court that the parent-daughter relationship had completely broken down and that the payment to their son-in-law was made “on the clear understanding that the spouse should not have any declare to them.”

He said that if the wife was deemed by the court to be able to share the gift, the mother should consequently be able to claim the money back as being gifted by “mistake”.

Lady Justice Andrews, having heard the appeal with Lord Justice Moylan and Lord Justice Nugee, however today dismissed both appeals, meaning the divorce order remains set aside and will need to be reconsidered.

Having found that non-disclosure of the expected gift had a material effect on how the former couple’s assets were divided, she went on to dismiss the mother’s appeal too.

“There was greater than sufficient proof to assist the choose’s discovering that the presents to the husband had been outright presents,” said the appeal judge.

“As far as she was involved, as soon as the cash was transferred to the husband it was his cash, to cope with howsoever he wished, even when he used a few of it to confer a profit on his former spouse.

“Whilst it might be, as the mother put it, ‘unfortunate’ if he were later compelled by a court to pay some of that money to the wife, the fact that he would be acting under compulsion rather than voluntarily would be immaterial to his right to treat that money as his own.”

Agreeing together with her fellow judges, she mentioned any mistaken perception on the a part of the mom that the spouse couldn’t profit from the presents was “not causative” of these presents, since she “clearly wanted the husband to have the gifts and to keep them for himself.”

Both appeals had been dismissed, which means Ms Copinger-Symes’ declare to cash from her ex-husband can proceed.