Ayesha Mary Barbara Vardag (born March 1968) is an English solicitor specialising in family law. She has gained notoriety for representing in divorce proceedings high net worth individuals, such members of the Royal Family, heiresses, international footballers, artists, professionals, entrepreneurs and celebrities. Her first case of note came with her Supreme Court victory in the 2010 case Radmacher v Granatino, which shifted the attitude of the law on prenuptial agreements, making courts less reluctant to vary their stipulations in England and Wales.
Video Ayesha Vardag
Early life
Ayesha Mary Barbara Vardag was born in London, daughter of an English mother and Pakistani father Asaf Vardag, who is a direct descendent of the Lodhi royal family that ruled India in the 16th century. Vardag's grandfather was active in the Indian National Congress and as its candidate was twice elected mayor of Karachi in undivided India.
Vardag grew up in Oxfordshire and read Law at Queens' College, Cambridge, with a Duke of Edinburgh award for membership of the Inner Temple, and took a Masters as a Cambridge Wiener Anspach scholar in European Law at the Université libre de Bruxelles, where she worked extensively on expert research projects at the International Court of Justice in The Hague and at the UN (IAEA) Legal Division in Vienna.
Maps Ayesha Vardag
Legal career
Vardag qualified as a solicitor in 1996 and was initially trained as a finance solicitor at Linklaters, where she became the leading specialist in nuclear energy law aged 26.
Prior to becoming a family lawyer, she worked for the New York law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges.
Vardag's training in matrimonial law was as a mini-pupil to Nicholas Mostyn and as one of two assistants to Raymond Tooth, senior partner at Sears Tooth and co-founder of the International Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, an invitation-only organisation which now consists of over 500 of the world's leading family lawyers. Vardag founded Ayesha Vardag solicitors in 2005, which incorporated as Vardags in May 2010.
Her first case of note was that of Radmacher v Granatino, which strengthened the law on prenuptial agreements in England and Wales. Vardag founded Ayesha Vardag LLP in 2005, which incorporated as Vardags Ltd in May 2010.
Controversy
In September 2011 the Daily Mail reported that Raymond Tooth, accused Vardag of trying to "pinch" celebrity clients from him which resulted in an agreed settlement
Notable cases
In 2010 Vardag made history in a landmark Supreme Court case that changed the law on prenuptial agreements. Acting for German heiress Katrin Radmacher, she won a ruling that the prenup she drew up to protect her £100 million fortune from her French-born husband was legally binding.
In 2017 Vardag helped former Malaysian beauty queen Pauline Chai secure a settlement of £64 million, one of the largest in history.
Personal life
Vardag is married to Stephen Bence, a financial consultant and a former astrophysicist who is director of strategy at Vardags Ltd. The couple have two sons and a daughter, and the family lives in North London.
See also
- Prenuptial agreement
- Divorce
- Family law
External links
- Radmacher pre-nuptial judgement - Sky News report
- How to have a good Brexit divorce - BBC News
- The 'diva of divorce' for the world's super rich - BBC News
References
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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