A former Goldman Sachs banker who used a marital joint account to fund an affair has been ordered to pay his ex-wife £4m after a High Court battle. Ardal Loh-Gronager, 35, had been set to receive a £6.4m payout under a prenuptial agreement after splitting from his wife Wei-Lyn Loh in 2023. However, the court found he had already taken around £4m from joint accounts and his wife's personal account, often disguising payments to his mistress as 'flowers'.
Mr Loh-Gronager married Ms Loh, a successful businesswoman and heiress, in 2019 after leaving his job to oversee the refurbishment of their mansion on Avenue Road in Primrose Hill, one of London's most expensive streets. The couple separated after it emerged he had conducted an 'expensively financed relationship' parallel to his marriage, during which he paid cash to his mistress from their joint account and allowed her to use his £200,000 Bentley, a gift from his wife.
In his ruling, Mr Justice Cusworth said the former banker had 'callously and quite deliberately sought to cause upset' to his ex-wife, hoping she would drop the case. The judge noted that Mr Loh-Gronager began taking money from the joint account 'almost as soon as it was set up', suggesting he had been preparing for a lucrative separation. He also transferred £1m from his wife's account on the day she was undergoing therapy before the end of their relationship.
The court heard that Mr Loh-Gronager had sought to 'undermine, harass and unsettle' his ex-wife by hiring a 'lacklustre' private investigator to pose as a journalist outside her home and setting up a private Instagram account to publish photos of her. He also doctored emails to boost his case. As a result, his payout was slashed to £2,369,385, reflecting the amounts he had already received and his conduct.
Ms Loh, 43, argued that the transfers were not gifts but unauthorised takings from accounts she financed. Mr Loh-Gronager claimed they were part of a pattern of gifts to provide him with financial security, and that his ex-wife was acting out of 'unhappiness and bitterness'. The judge rejected his arguments, finding that the joint account was intended for living expenses, not his personal investments.
