G'day all,
Here is the conclusion. Thanks to the hardy souls who have seen it through to the end.
Massive thanks to Favored for putting in the time to make this readable.
Love to hear your thoughts.
CharlieB4
*****
For the next couple of months we were like a couple of lovesick teenagers. Whenever we were together we had to be touching. I'd place my hand on her leg if sitting. We'd entwine fingers if standing, embracing and kissing whenever the opportunity arose, much to David's disgust.
When we were alone it was easy, meeting her friends was another matter. It made me feel very old going to functions with couples in their thirties. Charlie stayed close, which helped, but I still felt they were wondering what she was doing with me. On the other side it was much easier because I didn't really have a lot of close friends. More acquaintances or business associates, Charlie charmed the socks off all of them and I got a lot of admiring glances. I basked in her glow and was chuffed with the jealous looks I got from guys my own age.
We spent the weekends together and sometimes if she had a free period either side of noon she would bring some lunch to the office. Occasionally I got to have dessert there...if you know what I mean. Even a phone call from Brian to tell me the motion to appeal had been successful couldn't dampen my good mood.
Once again W.A.N.K. was successful in having the hearing brought forward. In fact, the chief judge ruled there was no need for a directions hearing and slated the appeal for four weeks' time. We organized a barrister in Canberra and spent a morning with him going through the case. After reading through our brief and asking a couple of questions, Tom laid it out for me.
"There are five basic principles the family court use in determining financial separation in divorce hearings. Three don't apply in this case," he held up his hand with three fingers raised ticking each off as he continued. "Firstly, in a relationship that has lasted this long whatever assets you had before the relationship are irrelevant unless there is a pre-nuptial agreement. Secondly the contribution to the assets by each party during the relationship won't be taken into account as your wife was the homemaker and you were providing the sole income. The third criteria the court can apply is who has custody of the children, as they are no longer dependent, that doesn't matter here either.
"So all we have to worry about is a straight division of assets which would be fifty/fifty but for your wife's age and employment prospects. Given she has no formal qualifications and is unlikely to be able to get a job whose salary would be commensurate with yours, you can expect to be asked to pay some form of alimony." Tom concluded.
'God', I thought, 'we are paying this guy nine hundred dollars an hour to state the bleeding obvious!' Before I could think of a clever way to say we already knew that, Brian intervened.
"How do you think the fact that Rachel already has sizable assets that she has previously tried to hide will affect the outcome?" He asked.
I had to stifle a laugh as I got the mental image of Rachel standing in front of a mirror asking does my asset look big in this. Brian shot me a quizzical look but the barrister didn't seem to notice. Tom placed his elbows on his desk, bringing his hands together forming a steeple which he then rested his chin on. He stayed like that, deep in thought about the question, like he was deciding if a man was going to live or die. Eventually he sat back and, after pausing once again for dramatic effect, we got the anticlimactic answer.
"We shall have to see on the day." No doubt he picked up on my eye roll so he continued. "If I was representing your wife I would play on the fact she needs enough money to support her for the next forty years. While you have a successful business, she has no real prospect of getting a job that would give her similar income to what she had with you. We, on the other hand, will argue that she has considerable means with the money she has and is currently in a relationship with another person."
"Who is the main reason she doesn't have more money!" I growled, exasperated with the whole process. "Do you think we can get it to fly? Our arguments I mean," I clarified my question after seeing a blank look on the barristers face.
"We'll definitely give it a good go, but you should know, Jeff, you will have to pay something. Possibly up to five million."
"That's what we thought," Brian agreed.
"I think that covers everything, I would like some documentation of your wife's current living arrangements, do you have any?"
"Nothing current," I said, then I added, "But I have a contact I can find out from."
"Great, you get on with that and we will talk closer to the hearing date." Tom closed the brief in front of him and pushed his chair back as he prepared to stand and see us out. "There's nothing else I should know is there?" He asked jovially.
I was almost standing myself and about to say no when Brian spoke.
"Yes, actually, there is." I looked at him with a blank face, "you had better tell him about the other ten million."
I sat back down as Tom spluttered, "What other ten million?"
"Umm," I stalled trying to think of how to say it. "I actually won thirty million but I split ten million off to my sister."
"Was she part of your family syndicate?" Tom inquired suspiciously.
"Well we didn't have a family syndicate, I hadn't bought a ticket before, and it was just a spur of the moment thing."
"You won the first time you had bought a ticket?" Tom gave an incredulous gasp as I nodded.
"This is fairytale stuff. They will have a field day with it! Is it in here?" He asked pointing to the brief. "Do you have any evidence to back up that your sister was a party to buying the ticket?"
"Yes, I called her before I bought it, I have the call log from my phone, and hers as well. Along with the lottery stub with date and the time five minutes after I spoke to her. I'm an independent director on the investment company we set up for her and it's in the list of companies I work for."
"So you are a director of a ten million dollar company that you set up for your sister after you won thirty million dollars"
I went on to explain I was an independent director of lots of companies that I was an accountant for. He still looked skeptical especially when I told him that it had over fourteen million in assets now.
"What did she do? Go into the drug business?"
"No, it's all legal and above board, although many of my farmer clients consider futures traders criminals." Tom was still digesting the additional information and didn't crack a smile at my attempt at humor.
"Does the opposition have a sniff of this?"
"Yes, they interviewed my sister."
"That puts a different complexion on things. They will run hard on this. It's their ticket to a ten million dollar settlement if they can disrupt your 'story'." Tom put his hands up and put visual quotation marks around the word story to let me know he didn't believe me.
"That's why we are retaining you, to make sure they don't disrupt anything." I replied, putting the ball firmly back into his court.
"Yes...yes I suppose that's right. The fact that it's an appeal will help. When you have three judges on the bench they tend to push things through quickly. Your wife's legal team won't get much time to question or badger witnesses. Anyway, that will do for now, I'll be in touch about a week before."
