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PLUMMETING PROPERTY AND SHARE VALUES HAVE LED TO INNOVATIVE ATTEMPTS TO REOPEN DIVORCE SETTLEMENTS.
There's nothing quite like a multi-million dollar divorce settlement to capture the public interest. When movie, entertainment or sports stars slug it out in the courts and part with exorbitant sums of money to end a relationship, it can become a media circus.
But what has been occupying many divorce and appeal courts all over the globe in recent times are arguments over often large financial settlements made during the global financial crisis and whether one party may have been short changed on their share because of subsequent investment losses. Another rising trend is couples who don't fall into the "silly money" category enduring the relationship while they wait for shared asset values to rise or in attempts to make a percentage split settlement, but delaying it until the "spoils" being divided show some investment recovery.
Relationship breakdowns have long been part of the collateral damage of economic downturns as former high flyers head for the job queue, lifestyles can't be sustained or already shaky relationships crumble under financial pressure.
Among the more public cases to hit the headlines is that of New York lawyer Steven Simkin and his former wife Laura Blank. They reached a property settlement almost exactly a year before the GFC began in mid-2007 and, it seemed, their financial and personal lives would be severed forever.
Then the financial system that had put them in the multi-million dollar bracket rapidly unwound and Simkin is still arguing before New York's State Supreme Court that their US$6.6 million settlement should be reopened to give him a fairer split of the one-time marital assets - based on current values.
The core of his claim concerns US$5.4 million believed at the time of the settlement to be held in securities with since-confessed and jailed-for-life investment fraudster Bernie Madoff.
As the central part of the property settlement, Simkin had kept all of the Madoff "investments" then worth US$5.4 million according to Madoff's written monthly statements - and he paid Blank US$2.7 million in cash.
The GFC stifled the flow of fresh money into Madoff's coffers, leading to his confession that his purported investment house was nothing more than a gigantic scam....