The first round of mudslinging has started, for the details please click on the above link.
I have no idea which party will win, but as usual the lawyers will have a field day:
The case will see a battle between two of Britain’s top divorce lawyers. Ayesha Vardag, known as the ‘diva of divorce’, is representing Miss Chai, while Fiona Shackleton, who has been nicknamed the ‘steel magnolia’ for her charm and determination, is acting for Dr Khoo.
Ahead of forthcoming preliminary hearings, Miss Vardag said: ‘This is the husband trying desperately to forum-shop [find a court which would give him the best result] himself out of English courts into Malaysia where Pauline has not lived since her youth and of which she is not even a citizen.
‘The English courts would share out the assets this couple built up over more than 40 years of marriage with five children on the basis of fairness. The Malaysian courts would give Pauline much less.’
"Dr Khoo, who is ranked the 36th richest man in Malaysia by US magazine Forbes, bought a 40 per cent stake in Laura Ashley in 1998."
Most likely he bought this through one of his companies, MUI currently holds the shares, in other words Khoo owns a part of a company which owns a part of Laura Ashley.
"He also runs a global investment company, Malaysian United Industries."
Some would call it a global investment company, others would call it a penny stock, it usually trades around RM 0.20. The reason being that there is an unbelievable amount of shares outstanding, close to 3 Billion (but then again, compared to MAS that is peanuts, they just issued a rights issue of 13,368,624,960 ordinary shares).
Once the MUI group was the proud owner of MUI Bank, previously known as Kwong Lee Bank, now known as Hong Leong Bank. The whole stable of MUI/PM companies was hit very hard in the 1997/98 Asian crisis.
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