German heiress to fight pre-nup case

A German heiress was to go to court today to try to stop her former husband from making claims on her £100 million ($212 million) fortune in a landmark case that will decide the status of pre-nuptial agreements in Britain.

The highest court in the country will rule on whether it is fair to allow Katrin Radmacher, 39, to hold Nicolas Granatino, 37, to strict terms that restrict his size of the divorce spoils.

At the time of their marriage in 1998, Granatino was working for JP Morgan and earning as much as £325,000 a year. But when they separated in 2006, he had left to work as a research scientist at Oxford University.

Radmacher accused her husband of deliberately delaying his doctorate to maximise his claim and said if he wishes to be an academic he must live as such.

The couple met in Tramp, the members-only nightclub in Mayfair, when she was running a clothes shop in Knightsbridge with her sister. They married in London after signing a pre-nuptial contract in Germany and have two daughters.

At the first hearing in the High Court, Justice Baron heard Granatino had virtually no assets while his ex-wife's interests in the paper industry gave her £54 million in liquid assets and £52 million in capital assets, giving her an annual income of £2 million.

Although the judge recognised the pre-nuptial deal would have been fully enforceable in Germany or France, they have never been legally binding in Britain, and she said the arrival of the couple's children had "so changed the landscape" that it should be set aside, and she awarded Granatino £5,560,000.

Baron also noted the husband had not received independent legal advice before signing the contract and his wife had not disclosed the full extent of her assets at the time.

But the Court of Appeal reinstated the terms of the pre-nuptial agreement - that in the event of divorce neither party would make a claim on the other's money - reducing his share of the divorce to just £1 million.

Family law experts hope the judges of the Supreme Court will now clarify the law.

Michael Gouriet, partner in the family law team at Withers law firm in London, said:

"People often ask whether pre-nups are worth the paper they are written on. The Court of Appeal has demonstrated that they are, but it will be interesting to see whether, in the absence of legislative reform, the Supreme Court considers that the Court of Appeal have pushed the boundaries of discretion too far.

"It is a political hot potato for one European member state to be saying it will not respect a legally binding contract entered into in another, but the English courts tend to be paternalistic in protecting divorcing spouses from themselves."

A fair share of the fortune?

* Heather Mills and Paul McCartney

Mills had offered to sign a pre-nuptial agreement but McCartney had refused because he did not believe it would be necessary. He considered neither financial issues nor the 26-year age gap mattered much. She got £24 million.

* Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta Jones

Douglas was one celebrity who did have a detailed pre-nuptial agreement when he married Zeta Jones. He learnt the hard way when he had to pay his first wife a settlement of £20 million. Zeta Jones would be paid £1.4 million of Douglas's fortune for every year of their marriage.

* Steven Spielberg and Amy Irving

Spielberg met Irving when she auditioned for Close Encounters of the Third Kind in 1977. When they split in 1989, Irving contested their pre-nuptial agreement, reportedly scribbled on a napkin, because she did not have a lawyer. She was awarded £50 million, about half his fortune at the time.

- INDEPENDENT