A recent study carried out by the Hamilton Project has suggested that marriage last longer among the rich. However, the percentage of married men earning top-ten incomes has dropped from 95% in 1970 to 83% in 2012. High divorce rates have hit the rich too and probably harder than most of us can imagine.

Divorce procedures that are not amicable can lead to chaotic and long disputes.  For example, the former “highest paid woman in Britain “  Elena Ambrosiadou is finally expecting her divorce to be finalised after years of legal disputes and accusations of espionage with husband Dr Martin Coward.

The wealthy also endure highly expensive divorces settlements and fees: among the top five most expensive celebrity divorce settlements of all times, appear Rupert Murdoch and Anna Murdoch case. After 32 years of marriage, Mrs Murdoch received a sum amounting to GBP 1.6bn from her ex-husband’s fortune as part of the divorce settlement, whereas Junita Jordan got GBP 103m in 2006 after splitting up with former husband and basketball star Michael Jordan.

image source: sellyour-housefast.com

To avoid the nosy media sneaking for a scandal, the rich can luckily afford to pay arbitration procedures which allow them to resolve the dispute quicker and more discreetly than going in front of a judge. Amicable divorces make jumping the growing Court queues possible and an increasing number of wealthy couples are turning towards this convenient method.

Some legal firms offer divorce packages, created to help their clients save as many as their assets as possible or battling in British rather than international courts. According to Lord Justice Thorpe, extremely generous settlements have been granted to the wives of wealthy men in the last years in England and foreign nationals not living in the country have tried to make the most of the system. The example of Russian tycoon Ilva Golubovich and his former wife Elena clearly illustrates this new phenomenon:  Mrs Golubovich who was has been attempting to secure a British divorce in the hope of gaining a more generous settlement from her ex-husband. Additionally, a Nigerian woman managed to increase her settlement to almost 10 times her original settlement, after bringing her case to the Supreme Court last year.