INXS manager wins court battle with her SAS major ex-husband and her own multimillionaire mother after learning she secretly gifted him £27.6million when the pair divorced

A former manager of rock band INXS has won a court battle with her SAS major ex-husband and her own multimillionaire mother over a £27.6million secret gift. 

Businesswoman Maria-Christina Copinger-Symes married British SAS major James Copinger-Symes, 57, in 1998 and set up home with their four children in a house in Chelsea, estimated to be worth more than £3million.

Ms Copinger-Symes, 54, is part of the wealthy Perez de la Sala dynasty, which made its £550million-plus fortune in shipping Down Under, and she spent time as manager of Australian rock band INXS who were fronted by the late Michael Hutchence.

But she has been estranged from them for years and was even told not to attend her father’s funeral in 2022.

Her mother Felicite Perez De La Sala and three siblings’ feelings towards her have been described by a judge as being ones of ‘hate’ due to her taking sides against them in an earlier court battle in Singapore over family wealth.

The married couple split in 2022, with Mrs Copinger-Symes agreeing a court order – approved by a judge – under which she would pay her ex £1.2million, leaving her with £5.25million.

But the family ended up locked in a three-way fight after Mrs Copinger-Symes learned that her mother had secretly gifted her son-in-law about £27.6million of family money after the couple’s split.

Mrs Copinger-Symes said she should be handed about £14m of that money won and won a Family Court ruling in August 2024.

This overturned the financial order in the divorce on the basis that the pre-planned cash gift amounted to ‘material non-disclosure’ by her ex.

But her mother and her former husband went on to fight that decision in the Court of Appeal, arguing the gift was ‘non-matrimonial’ and would never have been made at all if Mrs Copinger-Symes were able to share it.

Today, the case returned to court where three senior judges dismissed Major Copinger-Symes’ and Ms Perez de la Sala’s appeals, paving the way for the wife to lay claim to a share of her mother’s huge cash gift.

In her ruling, Lady Justice Andrews said it was right that the divorce order be set aside and reconsidered in the light of the husband’s ‘non-disclosure’ of the £27.6milllion gift.

Keeping the fact of an expected gift quiet meant that the wife and the judge then dealing with the case were given a ‘distorted picture’ of the ex-couple’s individual needs post-divorce, she said.

Lady Justice Andrews added: ‘The suppression of the information about the largesse that the husband knew the wife’s parents intended to bestow upon him meant that not only the wife and her representatives but the court were presented with a seriously distorted picture of the parties’ respective financial circumstances and needs,’ she said.

‘The order, and the court’s approval of it, was premised on that distorted picture. The information was plainly material.’

The court heard that Maria-Christina Copinger-Symes is the daughter of a branch of the Australian De La Sala shipping family, with her parents owning a £300m share of the family fortune.

She married Major Copinger-Symes in Sydney in 1998, before the couple set up home in London, with Maria acting for a time as INXS’s European manager.

She now has lucrative business interests, including owning high-end scent and candle company Lilou et Loic.

In a ruling at the Central Family Court in 2024, Judge Edward Hess set out the background to Ms Copinger-Symes’ feud with her parents, saying: ‘The fact that the almost total estrangement existed from 2017 onwards is not in dispute.

‘[Her parents] Bobby and Felicite decided by late 2017 to withdraw all financial and emotional support for the wife. They both swore statutory declarations explaining why the wife did not feature in their respective wills.’

He said the family split was based on a row over ownership of a London property and what her mum in a letter called ‘your ultimate betrayal of the whole family’ during a fight in Singapore over the family fortune.

However, their relationship with the husband was completely different. He had ‘subsumed her position as a member of the family’ and his in-laws took his side against the wife in the divorce.

That relationship led to Mr Copinger-Symes being handed the £27.6million gift after their divorce.

The judge in 2024 went on to order that the divorce settlement should be overturned and reconsidered.

The finding then was that Major Copinger-Symes must have known he was in line to get the gift before he signed the March 2022 divorce settlement with his ex-wife and so was guilty of ‘non-disclosure’.

At the Court of Appeal in December, however, the husband’s barrister Richard Todd argued that the family judge got it wrong and should not have opened the gate for the wife to tap into the money gifted to him by her mother.

Mr Todd said: ‘The judge described the attitude of the wife’s mother, father and three siblings towards the wife as being one of “hate”.

‘It was manifest that they did not wish her to benefit from the fortune which had been retained.

‘It was accepted that the gift was non-matrimonial. There was no basis on which the gift should be invaded.

‘The wife expected the husband to be paid millions by her family. It was reasonable to infer that her expectation was that the husband would be paid in the tens of millions.’

Dakis Hagen, for the mother, also asked for the ruling to be overturned, telling the court that the parent-daughter relationship had completely broken down.

He said the payment to the parents’ son-in-law was made ‘on the clear understanding that the wife should have no claim to them’.

Mr Todd said that if the wife was deemed by the court to be able to share the gift, the mother should consequently be able to claim the money back as being gifted by ‘mistake’.

Lady Justice Andrews, having heard the appeal with Lord Justice Moylan and Lord Justice Nugee, today dismissed both appeals – meaning the divorce order remains set aside and will need to be reconsidered.

Having found that non-disclosure of the expected gift had a material effect on how the former couple’s assets were divided, she went on to dismiss the mother’s appeal too.

The appeal judge said: ‘There was more than enough evidence to support the judge’s finding that the gifts to the husband were outright gifts.

‘As far as she was concerned, once the money was transferred to the husband it was his money, to deal with howsoever he wished, even if he used some of it to confer a benefit on his former wife.

‘Whilst it might be, as the mother put it, “unfortunate” if he were later compelled by a court to pay some of that money to the wife, the fact that he would be acting under compulsion rather than voluntarily would be immaterial to his right to treat that money as his own.’

Agreeing with her fellow judges, she said any mistaken belief on the part of the mother that the wife could not benefit from the gifts was ‘not causative’ of those gifts, since she ‘clearly wanted the husband to have the gifts and to keep them for himself’.

Both appeals were dismissed, meaning Ms Copinger-Symes’ claim to money from her ex-husband can proceed.

Maj Copinger-Symes said following the ruling: ‘It is disappointing that the Court of Appeal have decided that we must go back to court.’