{"id":338575,"date":"2025-08-12T13:46:13","date_gmt":"2025-08-12T13:46:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/338575\/"},"modified":"2025-08-12T13:46:13","modified_gmt":"2025-08-12T13:46:13","slug":"london-property-developer-ordered-in-high-court-to-pay-ex-wife-15m-after-hiding-assets-in-sham-trust","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/338575\/","title":{"rendered":"London property developer ordered in High Court to pay ex-wife \u00a315m after hiding assets in ‘sham’ trust"},"content":{"rendered":"

A wealthy London property developer dubbed \u201cmenacing\u201d by a High Court<\/a> judge has been ordered to pay \u00a315 million to his ex-wife after trying to hide his assets and drive her into homelessness.<\/p>\n

Millionaire businessman Mario Michael, 57, used a sham trust and bogus documents to conceal the extent of his fortune in a legal battle with his former partner, Stalo Michael, 59.<\/p>\n

Details of the three-year battle – costing an estimated \u00a35 million – have now been revealed in a series of judgments which damn Mr Michael as \u201cdominating and menacing\u201d as well as \u201cfundamentally dishonest\u201d.<\/p>\n

Judge Edward Hess found the couple had lived a luxury life during their marriage, but Mr Michael had then tried to leave his wife \u201chomeless and in a financially parlous situation\u201d after their relationship ended.<\/p>\n

The property developer, from Barnet<\/a>, north London, who is a director of a string of companies, has now been ordered to pay Mrs Michael a total of \u00a315 million by September next year, including covering the majority of her legal fees.<\/p>\n

The High Court was told the couple met in 1999 and moved in together the following year, they two children together and then wed in April 2006.<\/p>\n

Judge Hess said by 2017 Mrs Michael was considering divorce<\/a>, in a marriage marked by \u201cfierce rows\u201d.<\/p>\n

She eventually decided to file for divorce after an incident in a pub in March 2022 when Mr Michael was said to have \u201cangrily\u201d criticised his wife.<\/p>\n

When proceedings began, Mr Michael texted her to say: \u201cPls remember. I\u2019ve got nothing on my name. All in trust. Because I always knew this day was coming, because you told me so.\u201d<\/p>\n

The judge said the property developer was determined to deny his wife her share of their wealth built up during the marriage, and he has \u201cdone everything in his power since to achieve that aim\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mrs Michael owned two London properties, but her husband had an interest in over 200 properties, the court heard.<\/p>\n

She \u201cplayed a submissive role\u201d in the business side of their marriage, the judge said, while Mr Michael has a \u201cdark side\u201d to his personality.<\/p>\n

\u201c(He) is a dominating and menacing presence and likes people to know that he is in charge and that doing what he says will generate a reward and crossing him will generate a punitive reaction\u201d, the judge ruled.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is the \u2018zookeeper feeding the penguins\u2019. The siblings, and their spouses, and his own spouse, are the penguins.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe will do what he wants to do. If they know what is good for them, they will do what he wants them to do and they will be rewarded.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cThe second darker side is that the husband is, in my view, a fundamentally dishonest man, quite prepared to be wholly and deliberately dishonest when it suits him to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

The legal dispute centred on a trust where the majority of the family wealth had been placed.<\/p>\n

Mr Michael argued his 83-year-old father had set up the trust and was the settlor of the trust.<\/p>\n

But Judge Hess concluded this was a fiction, backed by forged documents, to try to keep money from his ex-wife.<\/p>\n

Mr Michael\u2019s father signed a witness statement denying knowledge of the trust, which \u201cblew a huge hole\u201d in his son\u2019s case.<\/p>\n

The court also heard comments made by Mr Michael during the dispute, that he wished to \u201ctake everything off everyone related to Stalo\u201d and wanted to \u201csee them all homeless and destroyed\u201d.<\/p>\n

The effect of the court rulings is that the trust is invalid, and Mr Michael may also face a multi-million pound tax bill on top of the payments to his ex-wife.<\/p>\n

Jane Keir, a partner at law firm Kingsley Napley who represented Mrs Michael, said: \u201cProving that a trust is a sham trust is a complex matter, particularly in circumstances where the party seeking to challenge the arrangement often does not have access to the key evidence.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are pleased the court has decided in our client\u2019s favour and provided clarity on sham trusts in a family law context. No one should be aided in the concealment of funds that should properly be considered shared matrimonial assets.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis has been a long and, at times, highly frustrating process for our client as she courageously fights to uphold her rights before the court. Her husband\u2019s needless strategy of obfuscation has only served to worsen his position and increase costs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis case should act as a warning to others tempted by creating a false trail designed to thwart the lawful interests of a former partner. The family court has shown it has no hesitation in exposing such misleading conduct.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A wealthy London property developer dubbed \u201cmenacing\u201d by a High Court judge has been ordered to pay \u00a315…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":338576,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,393,120840,4884,257,120838,120836,120839,120837,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-338575","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-ex-wife","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-london","13":"tag-mario-michael","14":"tag-mr-michael","15":"tag-property-developer","16":"tag-stalo-michael","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115016104938710368","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=338575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338575\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/338576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=338575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=338575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=338575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}