INXS’s former manager wins divorce battle after estranged parents secretly ‘gifted’ ex-husband £27.6m
The former couple, who married in 1998, had four children and lived in a Chelsea home worth £3m
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Your support makes all the difference.A wealthy businesswoman has won a court fight against paying out £1.2m to her ex-husband after discovering her super-rich family had secretly “gifted” him £27.6m behind her back.
Maria-Christina Copinger-Symes, who managed rock superstars INXS, is part of the Australian Perez de la Sala dynasty, which made its £550m-plus fortune in shipping.
She married James Copinger-Symes, 57, in 1998, while he was an army major, and the couple set up home with their four children in a house in Chelsea, estimated to be worth more than £3m.
The couple split in 2022, with Ms Copinger-Symes agreeing on a court order under which she would pay her ex £1,192,533, leaving her with between £2.5m and £5m from the couple’s fortune.
She has now won a ruling overturning the order, after learning her super-rich estranged parents Bobby and Felicite Perez de la Sala have sided with her ex-husband, labelling her a “Judas” and secretly gifting him around £27.6m of family money, whilst at the same time cutting her out.
In a ruling at the Central Family Court, Judge Edward Hess ordered that the financial fallout of the divorce be reconsidered, with Ms Copinger-Symes now demanding her former husband pay about £14m of his new-found wealth.
“The financial remedies proceedings between the wife and the husband were conducted against the background of the wife’s very wealthy family having very negative feelings about her and very positive feelings about the husband ...This is very much an exception to the normal rule that ‘blood is thicker than water’,” the judge commented.
Ms Copinger-Symes acted for a time as European manager of Australian rock superstars INXS, led by singer Michael Hutchence who died in 1997.
She now has lucrative business interests, including owning the high-end scent and candle company Lilou et Loic.
But in the background, a major falling out between Ms Copinger-Symes and her parents was developing, so bitter that she was banned from attending her own father’s funeral when he died in 2022.
In his ruling, Judge Hess set out the background to Ms Copinger-Symes’s feud with her parents, saying: “The fact that the almost total estrangement existed from 2017 onwards is not in dispute.
“Bobby and Felicite decided by late 2017 to withdraw all financial and emotional support for the wife.”
They both swore statutory declarations explaining why Ms Copinger-Symes did not feature in their respective wills.
“There was a row over what the wife did with a gift from her parents of $AUD500,000 in February 2017. They felt this should have been shared with the husband and used to pay school fees, but the wife kept the money for herself and demanded more money for the payment of school fees.
“There was also a huge row in November 2017 over the ownership and occupation of a family property at 2, Marlborough Street, London SW3, in which the wife appears to have behaved in a hostile way to other family members.”
He said Ms Copinger-Symes never again saw her father before he died, with her parents pursuing “expensive and ultimately successful litigation against the wife over a number of years, finishing only in February 2022, to bar her from entering or asserting ownership over 2, Marlborough Street.
“The judge said the De la Sala family’s relationship with the husband was completely different.
“The judge said the De la Sala family’s relationship with the husband was completely different. The family not only liked and got on well with him, but they also regarded him as having been absolutely loyal to them” in a long-running financial dispute with Ernest de la Sala, the uncle of Ms Copinger-Symes, “and they took his side against the wife on the divorce issues,” he said.
“It is common ground that the consequence of these matters was that the financial remedies proceedings between the wife and the husband were conducted against the background of the wife’s very wealthy family having very negative feelings about her and very positive feelings about the husband.
“For all practical purposes, he had completely taken over her and subsumed her position as a member of the De la Sala family. This is very much an exception to the normal rule that ‘blood is thicker than water’.”
He went on to explain that, following the order in March 2022, Ms Copinger-Symes had failed to pay up the money, leading her army major ex to “become impatient” in December 2022 and go back to court.
However, that move led to the revelation in court in 2023 that, post-settlement, Major Copinger-Symes had “come into substantial wealth ... And was, all of a sudden, a very wealthy man.”
“In due course, it emerged that the wealth had largely come from gifts totalling US$34,777,180 made by the wife’s mother/parents,” said the judge.
“Perhaps it should not have done, but this information came as a horrible shock to the wife and it prompted a good deal of activity from her lawyers.”
That led to the wife going back to court, seeking to have the divorce order overturned and reconsidered, with her now claiming about £14m of her ex-husband’s now fortune.
Lawyers for Major Copinger-Symes argued that the settlement should remain in place because the money was gifted to him by the wife’s parents afterwards.
But ruling in favour of the wife on grounds of “material non-disclosure” the judge said the evidence suggested the husband must have known the massive gift was on the cards before the March 2022 divorce settlement was signed.
“There was a good deal of documentary evidence of the husband looking at a large number of expensive properties in Val D’Isere, London, Portugal and France from late 2020 and throughout 2021 and into early 2022,” he said.
“Given the husband’s financial position at this time ... Many of the properties would have been well out of his price range and can really only be credibly explained by the fact that he knew he was going to be given substantial sums in the near future.
“He variously explained that he was just a dreamer who liked looking at properties he had no intention of buying or that he would have borrowed money to make up the difference or that he was using a visit to a property to get around Covid rules.
“But I did not find any of these explanations very compelling. Some of his contemporaneous exchanges with real estate agents give all the appearance of a serious buyer and he has, of c”urse, actually purchased one of these expensive properties.
“I cannot agree that the knowledge that the wife’s parents/mother were planning to gift a substantial amount of money to the husband would have made no difference to the negotiations or the outcome in this case.
“In my view, the information would have made a significant difference and is a long way away from being de minimis.
“I have therefore concluded that the March 2022 order must be set aside.
“Had the husband genuinely not known anything about the likely arrival of gifts until 5 July 2022 then the case might have looked very different,” he added, going on to dismiss a bid by the wife’s mother to undo the gifts to the husband and reclaim the money herself.
The case is now set to go back to the Family Court, with the wife demanding about £14m from the husband.
The final details of Judge Hess’s ruling were made in August last year, but the judgment has only now been made publicly available.