Former INXS manager wins fight to claim £14m more in divorce from SAS major ex
A former rock band manager has won a £14million three-way Court of Appeal case against her SAS frontman ex-husband and his estranged multimillionaire mother who “hated” him.
Australian former INXS manager has become a wealthy businesswoman Maria-Christina Copinger-Symes married British SAS major James Copinger-Symes, 57, in 1998 and settled with their four children in a house in Chelsea estimated to be worth over £3 million.
Ms Copinger-Symes, 54, is part of the wealthy Perez de la Sala dynasty, which made its fortune of more than £550 million from shipping, but has been severely estranged from them for years and was even banned from attending her father’s funeral in 2022.
The feelings of his mother, Felicite Perez De La Sala, and his three siblings towards him were described as “hate” by a judge after he took sides against them in an earlier court battle over the family fortune in Singapore.
The couple split in 2022 and the wife agreed to a court order – approved by the judge – under which she would pay £1.2 million to her ex-partner and be left with £5.25 million.
But the family was embroiled in a three-way row after his wife discovered her mother had secretly gifted her son-in-law nearly £27.6 million of family money after their separation.
He said around £14 million of that money should be awarded to him, and in August 2024 he won a Family Court ruling overturning the financial order in the divorce on the grounds that the pre-planned cash gift amounted to “non-financial disclosure” by his ex.
But his mother and his ex-girlfriend challenged this decision in the Court of Appeal, arguing that the gift was “extra-marital” and would never have been given if his wife had been able to share it.
Today the case returned to court, where three senior judges dismissed the objections of Major Copinger-Symes and Ms Perez de la Sala, paving the way for the wife to lay claim to her mother’s huge cash gift.
In her judgment, Lady Justice Andrews said it was right that the divorce order be set aside and reconsidered in light of the husband’s “failure to disclose” the £27.6 million gift.
He said keeping the fact of an expected gift secret meant that the spouse and the judge handling the case at the time were given a “distorted picture” of the former couple’s individual post-divorce needs.
“The concealment of information about the generosity that the husband knew his wife’s parents planned to give him meant that not only the wife and her representatives, but also the court, were faced with a seriously distorted picture of the parties’ financial circumstances and needs,” he said.
“The decision and the court’s approval of it were based on this distorted picture. The information was clearly material.”
The court heard Maria-Christina Copinger-Symes was the daughter of a branch of the Australian De La Sala shipping family and her parents had a £300 million share of the family fortune.
She married Major Copinger-Symes in Sydney in 1998, before the couple settled in London, where Maria served for a time as the European manager of Australian rock superstars INXS, led by tragic singer Michael Hutchence.
He now has lucrative business interests, including owning high-end fragrance and candle company Lilou et Loic.
In a judgment handed down in the Central Family Court in 2024, Judge Edward Hess explained the background to Ms Copinger-Symes’ fight with her parents: “The fact that there was almost total estrangement from 2017 is beyond dispute.
“[Her parents] Bobby and Felicite decided to withdraw all financial and emotional support for the spouse in late 2017. “They both made legal representations explaining why the spouse was not included in their wills.”
He said the family split was based on a dispute over ownership of a property in London and what his mother called in a letter “your ultimate betrayal of the entire family” during a fight over the family fortune in Singapore.
However, her relationship with her husband was completely different. He had “assumed her position as a member of the family” and his father-in-law sided with his wife against his wife in the divorce.
The affair led to Mr Copinger-Symes being given a £27.6 million post-divorce gift.
In 2024, the judge ordered the divorce agreement to be quashed and reconsidered after finding that Major Copinger-Symes knew he was in line to receive the gift before signing the divorce agreement with his ex-wife in March 2022, and was therefore guilty of “failure to disclose.”
But in the Court of Appeal in December the husband’s lawyer, Richard Todd KC, argued that the family judge had misunderstood and should not have opened the door for his wife to benefit from the money her mother had gifted her.
“The judge described the attitude of the woman’s mother, father and three siblings towards her husband as ‘hate’,” he said.
“It was clear they didn’t want him to benefit from the wealth they had left.
“The gift was deemed to be extramarital. There was no basis for the gift to be violated.”
“The wife expected her husband to be paid millions by his family. It was reasonable to infer that her expectation was for him to be paid tens of millions of dollars.”
Dakis Hagen KC, on behalf of the mother, also asked the court to overturn the following decision, telling the court that the parent-daughter relationship had completely broken down and that the payment to their son-in-law was made “with the clear understanding that the wife should not have any claim on them.”
He said that if the wife is deemed by the court to be able to share the gift, the mother should also be able to claim the money back on the grounds that the gift was given “by mistake”.
Lady Justice Andrews dismissed both appeals today after hearing an appeal from Lord Justice Moylan and Lord Justice Nugee, meaning the divorce order has been set aside and will need to be reconsidered.
It also rejected the mother’s objection, finding that the failure to disclose the expected gift had a significant impact on the division of the former couple’s assets.
“There was ample evidence to support the judge’s finding that the gifts to the husband were direct gifts,” the appellate judge said.
“In her view, once the money was transferred to the husband, it was his money to do with as he wished, even if he used some of it to benefit his ex-wife.
“While it was, in the mother’s words, ‘unfortunate’ that she was subsequently forced by a court to pay some of this money to her wife, the fact that she was acting under duress rather than voluntarily would be immaterial to her right to treat this money as her own.”
Agreeing with her fellow judges, she said any mistaken belief by the mother that the wife was incapable of benefiting from the gifts was “not the reason” for the gifts, as she “clearly wanted the husband to receive the gifts and keep them for himself”.
Both appeals were rejected, meaning Ms Copinger-Symes’s claim to seek money from her ex-husband can go ahead.
