A Family Court in the United Kingdom has ordered the ruler of Dubai, Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, to pay $734 million to his estranged wife, Haya Bint al-Hussein, and her children.
Aljazeera records the ruling as the largest financial award a UK family court has ever made.
Philip Moor, a London judge, ordered Mr Al Maktoum to pay Ms al-Hussein 251.5 million pounds within three months to cover security and lost items like jewellery and clothing.
Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum is also required to make annual payments of about 11 million pounds toward costs for his children while they are in education, which will be secured by a 290 million-pound bank guarantee, the judge ruled.
The disclosure, by another judge, that the Dubai ruler ordered the hacking of phones belonging to his wife and her legal team, may have provoked the unusually high award for security, levied against the ruler.
In his reaction, the Dubai sheikh said in a statement that he “has always ensured that his children are provided for.”
London’s family courts are a popular destination for high-value legal fights, with judges typically prepared to order a more equal share of a couple’s assets.
Before Tuesday’s decision, the largest known judge-ordered award in a divorce was 450 million pounds, made in favour of the wife of billionaire Farkhad Akhmedov — though the two settled with a payment of less than one-third of that amount.
Ms Haya had told the London Court that she was “under siege,” and that the sheikh’s surveillance of her “could not be more intrusive and distressing,” according to the ruling.
The only claim for financial provision she made for herself was for security and some lost personal possessions.
