Amazon founder set for largest divorce settlement in history

High profile divorce settlements are nothing new, especially in the realm on the ‘celebrity divorce’, but the record is about to increase substantially.

Jeff Bezos, founder of online shopping giant Amazon, is set to hand over shares amounting to £29bn to his soon-to-be ex-wife MacKenzie Bezos. The amount, comprising a 4% stake in Amazon itself, will represent the largest divorce settlement in history be quite a margin.

If you’re interested, the previous record was the $2.5bn paid to Jocelyn Wildenstein in her 1999 divorce from art dealer Alex Wildenstein.

MacKenzie Bezos will become the world’s fourth-richest woman as a result of the settlement, and she has already pledged to give at least half of her fortune to charity via the philanthropic initiative The Giving Pledge.

The case is a useful illustration of the idea of marital assets and the entitlements that accompanies them. MacKenzie and Jeff Bezos married in 1993, a year before he launched Amazon, meaning that all of the success and wealth brought about by the online shopping behemoth falls within the marital asset classification. 

If you require legal advice from a divorce solicitor in Northern Ireland, contact Wilson Nesbitt in Belfast or Bangor by clicking here.