His people vehemently deny all rumors of a pre-wedding division of marital property but choice of venue and residence may have left the notoriously divorce-leery star with few other options.Once George Clooney announced he was actually getting married again, even the gossip channels naturally assumed it took an ironclad premarital contract to seal the deal. But after a few tabloids started chasing rumors of prenup-related squabbling between the star and soon-to-be-wife Amal Alamuddin, his people were quick with a blanket denial. Would Clooney really trust true love to look out for hundreds of millions of dollars in wealth – plus the Italian villa, the cars and whatever he makes while married? With a world-class attorney on the other side of the aisle, he might not have had much choice. More than a picturesque venue For starters, while the new Mr. and Mrs. Clooney got married in Venice, they got their marriage license in suburban London. That’s where she lives and seems eager to keep working as a high-profile member of the human rights legal establishment. Since he just bought a big house in the manicured Oxfordshire countryside, it’s a pretty safe bet that their formal residence as a couple will be on British soil – and with the couple mentioning wanting to raise a family, any kids will be U.K. citizens. That’s where the prenup story starts to unravel. Before a few months ago, British judges considered pre-marriage contracts drafted in other countries unenforceable or at best an indication of how the couple would want to divide their assets in a split. Now there seems to be room for courts to treat these standard U.S. planning instruments as having a little more weight, but with no formal statute to lean on a British divorce still boils down to whatever the judge thinks is fair. “Fairness” here might entail clawing back a few million dollars or pounds for the poorer spouse, no matter what paperwork he or she signed. And if kids are involved, it’s a fair bet that no British judge would leave them in the cold when it comes to assigning support. Inserting unloved nonexistent offspring into the breakup of a marriage barely a week old may seem like multiplying hypotheticals, but this is exactly the kind of uncertainty the classic prenup and similar contracts have evolved to protect against. Right now, there’s almost no case law in the United Kingdom to support a pre-marital division of assets, so if Clooney’s Hollywood lawyers wanted to lock up his millions in that venue, they were basically rolling dice. While Amal may look like a movie star in her own right, she’s deeply immersed in British law. As an NYU grad, she also has at least passing knowledge of how the system differs from its U.S. counterpart. Should the relationship go sour, she’s in a great position to file in the most favorable jurisdiction, and her home turf happens to be remarkably favorable. Given Clooney’s apparent eagerness to keep the relationship on her side of the pond, for all practical purposes she might have considered a prenuptial agreement just another Hollywood formality – and the existence of such a document is probably moot. Different standards of “fairness” apply For his part, Clooney must have recognized the relatively high risk of exposing his fortune to a messy international split. He played a divorce lawyer so “prenup” is definitely in his vocabulary along with the high price when millionaires leap into marriage without one. After all, the star’s first marriage ended in months of sometimes heated bickering over who got the house, the motorcycle, the piano. Back then, he maybe had a few hundred thousand dollars in liquid assets to his name. Now, with $180 million to $220 million in career earnings at stake depending on where we are in his production cycle, he has more reason than ever to be wary. He may not even care about the money, but a big alimony judgment exposes his painstakingly curated professional reputation to a lot of bad mercenary choices. Look at stars like Jude Law, Nic Cage, even Robin Williams, taking any bad movie that comes along just to cash a check and write another one to the ex-wife. Clooney prides himself on picking meaningful roles, so while he may not care how hard divorce hits his wallet, he might not relish having to hustle “Batman & Robin” style roles at this point in his career. He might trust Amal not to dig for gold. His people had a duty to protect him from bankruptcy, embarrassment and heartbreak, probably in that order. If that meant pioneering British divorce law by building a prenup with enough strings attached to push past the most sensitive family court, then that’s what it takes. But how much “fairness” would a U.K. judge need to invoke to split Clooney’s assets down the middle? Amal is what we might call posh but not super-wealthy. While her family volunteered to cover the wedding, which might have cost up to $13 million, she herself might have only a few million dollars to rub together. She’s a partner in a fairly prestigious firm, but by hoary British legal standards its 1990-era pedigree practically puts it on the level of a dot-com start-up. From the want ads I’ve seen, the firm offers clerks a salary that’s about what a U.S. counterpart would pay, so we might expect her to bring down a couple of hundred thousand a year. Equity at even the top U.K. firms is relatively low. At best, senior partners might rake in the equivalent of another $1.5 million a year. I doubt Amal’s shop is quite on that level. Compared to a George Clooney who makes $20 million a film and can double that paycheck on the right long-term product endorsement, she’s not bringing a lot of tangible wealth into the marriage. He can effectively match her career earning potential in a couple of years. And at a vigorous 53, he’s got a lot of movies left in him. In the event of a divorce, Amal can probably claim tens of millions. Depending on the judge, she might actually get it. But needless to say, we wish them a long and happy life together and that any prenup they signed will never be tested.
