POUNDS STERLING

UK Courts Trim Record-Breaking Settlement Between Priscilla Star And His Ex-Partner

We reported earlier this month about English stage actor Don Gallagher (Priscilla Queen of the Desert) getting £1.7 million (about $2.7 million) in his separation from civil partner Peter Lawrence, a successful equity analyst for JPMorgan.

But Bloomberg is reporting that a UK court of appeal today agreed to trim that figure down to £1.37 million pounds (roughly $2.18 million). The court reduced Gallagher’s cash payout to £350,000 ($560,000) and rejected his claim on more than £90,000 ($143,000) of Lawrence’s deferred bonuses.

Lawrence must give Gallagher 33 percent of their assets rather than the 42 percent share awarded by a lower court, a three-judge panel at the Court of Appeal in London ruled today.

Under today’s decision, the banker will keep the London apartment he purchased before the 11-year relationship began, even though the property “soared” in value from 650,000 pounds in 1997, when the couple moved in together, to 2.4 million pounds. Gallagher got the couple’s second home, valued at nearly 900,000 pounds.

While we doubt you’re crying about the dough, Gallagher, 54, lost but he would have made off substantially better if the men were legally married instead of just joined in civil union. (Marriage equality is currently under consideration in Great Britain.)

“If this were a heterosexual marriage, and he were the female partner married to a wealthy City trader, he would have walked away with a considerably greater sum,” Matt Baldwin, a spokesman for Gallagher’s law firm Boodle Hatfield, said in a phone interview referring to workers in London’s financial district.

Even with this reduction the Gallagher-Lawrence split is reportedly still England’s highest-value civil partnership dissolution.

 

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