--- title: Panama Papers' Love Connection: divorce among the wealthy description: The ultra wealthy can be as petty as anyone when it comes to divorce canonical: https://time.com/4281274/the-panama-papers-love-connection/ author: Belinda Luscombe article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-04-05T16:29:04.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:45:09.975Z og:title: The Panama Papers' Love Connection og:description: The ultra wealthy can be as petty as anyone when it comes to divorce og:url: https://time.com/4281274/the-panama-papers-love-connection/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte09b3f05690242fb/69888daa3c163905ef45cb48/gettyimages-519100762.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4552 og:image:height: 2561 og:image:alt: PANAMA-PAPERS-MOSSACK-FONSECA og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Panama Papers' Love Connection twitter:description: The ultra wealthy can be as petty as anyone when it comes to divorce twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte09b3f05690242fb/69888daa3c163905ef45cb48/gettyimages-519100762.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The Panama Papers' Love Connection > Sponsored content. 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It covers the reporting, scoops and conversations shaping AI and the decisions facing leaders. #### Where can I get reported AI news rather than commentary? In the Loop is TIME's AI newsletter, built on original reporting and access to the people building and governing AI. It publishes Tuesdays and Fridays and is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who writes TIME's In the Loop? Harry Booth, a tech reporter at TIME, writes In the Loop. #### Is In the Loop free? Yes. In the Loop is free at time.com/newsletters. ## Video: TIME Raw: Obama on Tax Avoidance [Watch (HLS stream): TIME Raw: Obama on Tax Avoidance](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/tB7JoQEo.m3u8) (1:18)  _Published 2016-04-05_  by [Belinda Luscombe](https://time.com/author/belinda-luscombe/)  ## Belinda Luscombe Editor at Large Apr 5, 2016 4:29 PM UTC  View of a sign outside the building where Panama-based Mossack Fonseca law firm offices are in Panama City, on April 4, 2016. View of a sign outside the building where Panama-based Mossack Fonseca law firm offices are in Panama City, on April 4, 2016. RODRIGO ARANGUA—AFP/Getty Images  by [Belinda Luscombe](https://time.com/author/belinda-luscombe/)  ## Belinda Luscombe Editor at Large Apr 5, 2016 4:29 PM UTC It is a truth universally acknowledged that a soon-to-be-single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of hiding most of it from his wife. This tiny adjustment to Jane Austen’s words was one of the conclusions that most surprised the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists [when a trove of files from the global law firm Mossack Fonseca was leaked](http://time.com/4280302/panama-papers-leak-vladimir-putin-mossack-fonseca/?xid=homepage), leading to stories around the world about the money laundering practices of the rich and famous. One of the specialties of Mossack Fonseca is helping clients incorporate companies in certain countries, usually those with open financial regulations and not very open-eyed financial oversight. **Read More:** [**The Panama Papers Could Lead to Capitalism’s Greatest Crisis**](http://time.com/4280864/panama-papers-capitalism/?xid=homepage) These offshore companies can then be used to house assets, often to avoid paying taxes. But sometimes they can also be used to hide assets to avoid paying exes. The Panama Papers, as the Mossack Fonseca leak has become known, suggest that, sometimes, well before divorce papers are even written, gallant billionaire husbands (it’s usually husbands, although at least one wife has been named) begin to place their assets in complicated trust funds. These funds are held by off-shore shell companies as a way of creating a unnavigable maze for any spouses, attorneys or forensic accountants who wish to find out how much money a person is really worth. While their methods may be elaborate, the sentiment is very basic and at the heart of many a kindergarten fight: these people don’t wish to share. One of the unmasked billionaires was Monte Carlo-based, Russian-born Dmitri Rybolovlev, who made a fortune in fertilizer that amounted to an estimated $8.5 billion. His divorce from his wife of 20 years, Elena, was not just front-page news in Switzerland, where she lives, but around the world, because of the money involved, the intense wrangling over how the assets would be divided and his remarkable similarity to a Bond villain. Emails sent to Mossack Fonseca revealed that Rybolovlev was using one of the holding companies that the firm set up for him in the British Virgin Islands to quietly move assets—millions of dollars worth of art and Louis XVI-style furniture—out of Switzerland and into Singapore and London. Because Rybolovlev owned all the shares in that company, his wife was unable to get access to them once they were overseas. (Rybolovleva was initially awarded $4.5 billion, which was later reduced to $600 million before she accepted an undisclosed settlement.) Another Mossack Fonseca internal email spoke of a client, “a Dutch man married to a Dutch lady,” who was living in the Netherlands but wanted to protect part of his assets against “the unpleasant results of a divorce (on the horizon!)” The email goes on to ask about the possibility of using a “vintage foundation” to keep the wife from having access to said assets as a creditor. **Read More:** [**Here are the international figures tied to the Panama Papers**](http://time.com/4280413/world-leaders-panama-papers/?xid=homepage) But the most surprising thing about all these shenanigans is that they seem so unprofessional. In business, it’s often considered much smarter to pay a little extra money to get out of a bad deal fast and with minimal fuss. Successful businesses regularly pay out contracts of executives for whom they have no further use. Banks will take pennies on the dollar if a loan has gone really bad. Insurance companies will settle rather than going to court. Even the most ruthless landlords are often not above buying out tenants. But there’s a special sort of enraged blindness that seems to strike ex-spouses, who simply cannot bear that any money should go to the person that they most despise, even if that means a long, drawn out and expensive conflict, which has a negative impact on their kids, their mood and, as in this case, their public standing. One judge in a case in which Mossack Fonseca was involved took a billionaire husband to task for his arguments in a divorce proceeding, which the judge called “an elaborate charade” that was “founded on concealment and misrepresentation,” the point of which was to satisfy the desire “to vanquish \[his ex-wife\] financially.” As almost any divorce attorney could attest, when it comes to ending a marriage, it’s not just business. It’s extremely personal. ## Transcript I am very pleased that the treasury department has taken new action to prevent more corporations from taking advantage of one of the most insidious tax loopholes out there and fleeing the country just to get out of paying their taxes. When companies exploit loopholes like this, It makes it harder to invest in the things that are gonna keep America's economy going strong for future generations. It sticks the rest of us with the tab, and it makes hard working Americans feel like the deck is stacked against them. We've had another reminder in this big dump of data coming out of Panama That tax avoidance is a big global problem. It's not unique to other countries because frankly there are folks here in America that are taking advantage of the same stuff. A lot of it's legal, but that's exactly the problem. It's not that they are breaking the laws, it's that the laws are so poorly designed that they allow people that they've got Enough warriors and enough guns to wiggle out of responsibilities that ordinary citizens are having to abide by. When politicians perpetuate a system that favors the wealthy at the expense of the middle- class, it's not surprising that people feel like they can't get ahead. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4281274/the-panama-papers-love-connection/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4281274/the-panama-papers-love-connection/"},"headline":"The Panama Papers' Love Connection","datePublished":"2016-04-05T16:29:04.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:45:09.975Z","description":"The ultra wealthy can be as petty as anyone when it comes to divorce","url":"https://time.com/4281274/the-panama-papers-love-connection/","keywords":["Living","Money","Marriage","Divorce","Family","Panama Papers"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte09b3f05690242fb/69888daa3c163905ef45cb48/gettyimages-519100762.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Belinda Luscombe","jobTitle":"Editor at Large","url":"https://time.com/author/belinda-luscombe/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte09b3f05690242fb/69888daa3c163905ef45cb48/gettyimages-519100762.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"PANAMA-PAPERS-MOSSACK-FONSECA","caption":"PANAMA-PAPERS-MOSSACK-FONSECA","creditText":"RODRIGO ARANGUA—AFP/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-living/","name":"Living"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4281274/the-panama-papers-love-connection/","name":"The Panama Papers' Love Connection"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"TIME Raw: Iceland PM Steps Down Over Panama Papers","description":"","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/BSDt3sLT/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2016-04-05T13:51:57.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/BSDt3sLT.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/4281274/the-panama-papers-love-connection/","duration":"PT1M1S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/4281274/the-panama-papers-love-connection/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"TIME Raw: Obama on Tax Avoidance","description":"","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/tB7JoQEo/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2016-04-05T17:38:30.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/tB7JoQEo.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/4281274/the-panama-papers-love-connection/","duration":"PT1M18S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/4281274/the-panama-papers-love-connection/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```