The former chairwoman of the London City Lionesses has been ordered by the Court of Appeal to sell her £7 million home as part of a divorce settlement.
Diane Rosemin-Culligan was told to sell the property and give 40.4% of the proceeds to her financier ex-husband Anthony Culligan. The couple were told last year to divide their assets equally after a split following 40 years of marriage.
High Court ruling overturned
A High Court judge had divided around £27 million between them, with Mr Culligan taking a higher percentage of the value of shares in a financial company while his former wife was allowed to keep the £7 million house. However, after an appeal by Mr Culligan, the share of the money is to be redistributed, with the total amount remaining equal.
At a hearing in April, Mr Culligan argued that the previous order was unfair because he shouldered a larger risk, with his portion having a greater reliance on shares in Colendi Holdings Limited. The previous judge, Mr Justice MacDonald, had said that because Mr Culligan had not told Ms Rosemin-Culligan about the sale of SETL Limited, of which he owned 46% and which represented around half of the couple's matrimonial assets, to Colendi, he should therefore take on the greater risk.
Appeal judges' decision
But Lord Justice Moylan, sitting with Lord Justice Coulson and Lord Justice Arnold, said in a judgment on Friday that the previous judge was wrong to base his decision on this. He said the sale “would have taken place in any event” because SETL was running out of money, and therefore “the absence of consultation was not relevant for the purposes of determining how the Colendi shares should be distributed”.
To redress this, the judges ordered that the value of the Colendi shares should be split equally between the couple, which is to be balanced by Ms Rosemin-Culligan selling the house and giving 40.4% of the proceeds to her ex-husband.
The couple, now in their 60s, met in 1982 and married 10 years later. While there is a dispute as to when the relationship ended, with Mr Culligan saying September 2020 and Ms Rosemin-Culligan saying April 2022, their wealth was made during their marriage, Lord Justice Moylan said. A “significant source” of this came from a Bitcoin investment Mr Culligan made in 2012, when he bought £10,000 worth of the cryptocurrency and saw its value increase to £20 million by 2017. This was used to fund their companies and living expenses, the renovation of their home and the purchase of a house for Mr Culligan in the US.
