''Miller v Miller'' 2006 (

House of Lords The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by appointment, heredity or official function. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminste ...

) is a

divorce Divorce (also known as dissolution of marriage) is the process of terminating a marriage or marital union. Divorce usually entails the canceling or reorganizing of the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage, thus dissolving the ...

(

property settlement Division of property, also known as equitable distribution, is a judicial division of property rights and obligations between spouses during divorce. It may be done by agreement, through a property settlement, or by judicial decree. Distributio ...

) case between Alan Miller and Melissa Miller. He is an

asset In financial accounting, an asset is any resource owned or controlled by a business or an economic entity. It is anything (tangible or intangible) that can be used to produce positive economic value. Assets represent value of ownership that can ...

manager in the

City of London The City of London is a city, ceremonial county and local government district that contains the historic centre and constitutes, alongside Canary Wharf, the primary central business district (CBD) of London. It constituted most of London f ...

who had a fortune of some £30m (per

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...

- which says 17.5m in property plus 18.5 in shares). Melissa was entitled to £5 million of her former husband's assets after just two years and nine months of

marriage Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognized union between people called spouses. It establishes rights and obligations between them, as well as between them and their children, and between ...

, no children, the Law Lords ruled. Five Law Lords agreed that the benchmark for division should be equal shares - save in certain circumstances - no matter how short the marriage. They said that to achieve fairness at the end of a marriage, the courts should look to three main considerations: financial needs, compensation, and equal sharing. ''McFarlane v McFarlane''

006 Alec Trevelyan (006) is a fictional character and the main antagonist in the 1995 James Bond film '' GoldenEye'', the first film to feature actor Pierce Brosnan as Bond. Trevelyan is portrayed by actor Sean Bean. The likeness of Bean as Ale ...

was a conjoined appeal. This case similarly dealt with a high earning husband, but it concerned a long term marriage. At issue was the wife's periodic payments as compensation for the disparity in earning capacity that existed at the end of the marriage. The wife was awarded 250,000 p.a. for 5 years and potentially for life. There were children in that case.

Notes

{{reflist English family case law House of Lords cases 2006 in case law 2006 in British law Divorce law in the United Kingdom