Posted on June 14, 2013 in Divorce

Newspaper Tycoon Rupert Murdoch has filed divorce from his third wife, Wendi Deng. Murdoch and Deng have been married for 14 years and she recently made headlines for physically defending her husband from would-be pie thrower.

The incident happened when the 82-year-old media mogul was testifying before Parliament in London regarding the phone-hacking activities of some of his reporters. During the testimony a comedian ran at Murdoch with a shaving-foam pie but Deng, who was sitting behind Murdoch, quickly leapt up and smashed the comedian's hand.

"Mr. Murdoch, your wife has a pretty good left hook," said parliamentarian Tom Watson, who had been grilling the businessman just minutes earlier.

Chinese-born Deng has a masters degree from Yale and met Murdoch while working for one of his Hong Kong-based TV companies. She served as Murdoch's interpreter as he toured the Chinese mainland and he quickly launched a feverish courtship.

Deng gave birth to two children during the marriage and it is unclear how much of Murdoch's $11.2 billion fortune they stand to receive in this split. It is also unclear whether the couple signed a prenuptial agreement, but many experts say that is inconceivable that they wouldn't have one given Murdoch's extreme wealth and prior divorces.

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 Posted on June 09, 2013 in Alimony

A Rock County court recently upheld a prenuptial agreement in a high net worth divorce case.

The wife filed for divorce in September of 2009 and the husband found the prenuptial agreement nearly a year and a half later. The husband sought to enforce the prenuptial agreement and a trial court found that it was valid and enforceable with the exception of the maintenance waiver provision. The court then awarded the wife permanent maintenance of $6,515 per month.

In finding the maintenance waiver unenforceable, the court cited the fact that the couple had been married for over 30 years, during which time the husband established and maintained control over the wife's business, personal and retirement finances.

The court was unsympathetic to the wife's arguments that she would be unable to maintain her country club membership at her level of alimony, characterizing her former standard of living as "extravagant." The court did note however that the wife was drawing a significantly lower level of Social Security payments because of a plan contrived by the husband and his accountant to divert her social security contributions back to the family business.

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