A former Goldman Sachs banker has been stripped of nearly £4 million from his divorce settlement after a High Court judge ruled he had used money from a joint account with his wife to secretly fund an extramarital affair. The case, involving Ardal Loh-Gronager and his ex-wife, business heiress Wei-Lyn Loh, has exposed a bitter legal battle marked by allegations of financial manipulation and personal harassment.
Expensively Financed Parallel Relationship
Ardal Loh-Gronager, 35, married Wei-Lyn Loh, 43, in 2019 after they began living together in 2015. Mr Loh-Gronager, who had worked for prestigious financial institutions including Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Credit Suisse, left his banking career to support his wife, described in court as "enormously wealthy," and oversee the refurbishment of their mansion in Primrose Hill, London.
The couple's marriage ended in 2023 when it was revealed that Mr Loh-Gronager was having an affair. In court, this relationship was characterised as an "expensively financed relationship...parallel to his marriage." The judge, Mr Justice Cusworth, found that Mr Loh-Gronager began making regular payments from the couple's joint account to his mistress as early as November 2022, with transactions often disguised under innocuous labels such as "flowers."
Financial Manipulation and Prenup Dispute
Under a prenuptial agreement, Mr Loh-Gronager was entitled to receive over £6.4 million upon divorce, with the sum increasing based on the length of the marriage. However, his ex-wife dragged him to the High Court, accusing him of having already received approximately £4 million through unauthorised transfers and investments.
The court heard that Mr Loh-Gronager dipped into the joint account, which was intended to cover their living expenses, to transfer funds to himself and for personal investments. In a particularly striking instance, he transferred £1 million from his wife's account via the joint account on a day when she was undergoing a therapy session prior to the relationship's end. He claimed this was a "gift" made in a "desperate attempt" to save the marriage, but the judge dismissed this, noting the context of his ongoing affair.
Harassment and Evidence Doctoring
Beyond the financial misconduct, Mr Justice Cusworth found that Mr Loh-Gronager had engaged in a campaign to "undermine, harass and unsettle" his ex-wife. This included sending a private investigator to stand outside her home pretending to be a journalist and setting up a private Instagram profile to publish photos of her. The judge stated that these actions were taken "with the object of belittling her and embarrassing her" in hopes she would drop the case.
Further damaging his credibility, Mr Loh-Gronager was found to have "created and/or doctored" emails to bolster his case in court. He presented pdf copies of emails that he claimed showed his ex-wife was aware of certain transfers, but the judge determined they were falsified. "He has sought to undermine the integrity of the entire court process by his attempt to create false evidence," Mr Justice Cusworth remarked.
Court Ruling and Reduced Payout
After the trial, the judge ruled that due to the amounts Mr Loh-Gronager had already received and his general conduct—including the email doctoring—his payout should be reduced by around £4 million. This reduction included £375,000 specifically to mark his misconduct. Consequently, his final settlement was set at £2,369,385.
The judge concluded that Mr Loh-Gronager had been preparing for a "lucrative separation" throughout the marriage by siphoning funds from joint accounts. "The fact that the husband began to take amounts from the joint account almost as soon as it was set up suggests that he has throughout the marriage been preparing the ground for as lucrative a separation as he could contrive," Mr Justice Cusworth said.
The judgment, delivered in October, has only recently been made public, shedding light on the intricate and contentious divorce proceedings that blend high finance with personal betrayal.
