A SHEEP farmer’s ex-wife has lost a five-year legal battle to keep half of a £80million sum he gave her as part of a tax avoidance scheme.
Clive Standish, 72, transferred the multi-million pound gift to his former partner Anna in 2017, with the intention of eventually placing the money in an offshore trust for their children.
Clive Standish will keep the majority of an £80million gift he gave his wife[/caption]
It was initially decided by the High Court that Anna should receive half of the funds[/caption]
Clive, a former chief financial officer at UBS, made the decision to move the funds over to his Australian wife to exploit her non-dom status and avoid a crippling 40% inheritance-tax rate.
The former banker believed he would face a bill of about £32 million if he died with the money in his name.
But the pair’s 15 year marriage later hit the rocks and divorce proceedings began in 2020 with the assets still in her name.
It was initially decided by the High Court in 2023 that Anna, 57, should receive half of the funds in the settlement.
But last year, the Court of Appeal ruled that her share should be reduced from half to £25million.
The amount was judged to fairly represent her contribution to raising the children and looking after their home.
And despite Anna’s recent attempts to overturn the decision, the ruling was upheld by the Supreme Court yesterday.
Five judges argued that the sum was not a marital asset because it had not been shared by the couple and Mr Standish had intended it for their children.
The ruling said: “Tax planning schemes to save tax, involving transfers of assets from one spouse to another, are commonplace.
“The problem for the wife is that there is nothing to show that, over time, the parties were treating the 2017 assets as shared between them.
“Rather, the transfer was in pursuance of a scheme to negate inheritance tax and it was for the benefit exclusively of the children.
“The parties’ intention was that the £80 million should not be retained by the wife.”
His wife never established two offshore trusts as he had expected, so Clive was judged to be the sole owner of those assets when divorce proceedings began.
Lord Faulks, representing Anna, tried to argue that the money had become shared property after the initial transfer, adding that she had contributed by accepting the gift.
Mr Standish moved to Australia in 1976 and married Anna in December 2005, before the pair moved to the UK five years later.
The couple lived together at Moundsmere Manor, an 18-bedroom mansion near Preston Candover, Hampshire.
Clive’s laywer, Tim Bishop KC, explained that in June 2004 his client was worth £57.3 million, while Anna had “no significant pre-marital wealth”.
The marital assets at the time of the split amounted to £132million, almost all of which had come from Clive’s initial fortune.
Mr Bishop added: “The husband made the transfers in March 2017, but the wife failed to transfer the assets into trust by the time the marriage ran into problems in 2019 and then broke down finally in 2020”.
Delivering the Supreme Court ruling, Lord Burrows and Lord Stephens agreed with the Court of Appeal’s verdict.
The pair lived together at Moundsmere Manor in Hampshire[/caption]
Clive moved the funds over to his Australian wife to avoid inheritance-tax[/caption]
They said: “There was no matrimonialisation of the 2017 assets because the transfer was to save tax and it was for the benefit of the children not the wife.
“The 2017 assets were not, therefore, being treated by the husband and wife for any period of time as an asset that was shared between them.
“Transfers of capital assets with the intention of saving tax do not, without some further compelling evidence, establish that the parties are treating the capital asset as shared between them.
“The 2017 assets comprise the husband’s pre-marital assets and earnings that the husband made in the years 2004-2007, to which the wife contributed by being the home-maker and child carer during those years.
“In relation to a scheme designed to save tax, under which one spouse transfers an asset to the other spouse, the parties’ dealings with the asset do not normally show that the asset is being treated as shared between them.
“Rather, the intention is simply to save tax.”
Anna’s share following the Supreme Court ruling will stay at £25million[/caption]
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