"Priscilla Queen Of The Desert" Star Suffers Cut In Payout After Civil Partnership Ends

Tom Burroughes

30 March 2012

A UK court has awarded actor Don Gallagher, who starred in Priscilla Queen of the Desert, some 33 per cent of the assets from his former civil partnership to Peter Lawrence, a city equity analyst; the initial award was 42 per cent.

The decision, which came after the end of the men’s civil partnership, was described by Gallagher’s lawyers, Boodle Hatfield, as “disappointing”.

The case highlights how marriage and other long-term, legally-protected relationships are raising increasingly complex issues in the wealth advisory field. In England and Wales, for example, there has been a long legal battle to obtain recognition for pre-nuptial arrangements (such arrangements have been given a greater degree of recognition in Scotland, where the legal system differs).

The Court of Appeal ordered that the High Court decision that Gallagher should retain the couple’s country cottage, worth just under £900,000 (around $1.4 million), and that he should receive £200,000 of Lawrence’s pension, should be upheld. However, the lump sum of £577,778 which the judge ordered Lawrence to pay to Gallagher, should be reduced to £350,000, the Court of Appeal said, and Gallagher should no longer share in Lawrence’s deferred compensation awards from his employment.

“In one sense, this is a disappointing decision for my client. The High Court judge’s decision has been overturned, despite the fact that the appeal judge described it as “a careful and conscientious judgment,” James Ferguson, a partner at the family team at Boodle Hatfield, said about the case.

“The appeal judge was critical of the High Court judge’s method of calculating the lump sum figure of £577,778 but failed to set out the rationale for substituting it with the lower figure of £350,000. However, Don has still come away with far more than Mr Lawrence ever offered him and the outcome is much closer to Don’s original proposal than Mr Lawrence’s,” he said.

“Although the Court of Appeal made it clear that civil partnership dissolution cases should be treated in exactly the same way as divorces, it is questionable whether the outcome would have been the same if the facts had been transposed to an 11.7 year heterosexual marriage,” he said

Following the breakdown of the couple’s 11 year relationship Gallagher’s ex-civil partner offered him 13 per cent of the couple’s combined assets of £4.1 million, which included a Thames-side apartment worth £2.4 million and a thatched cottage in Sussex worth just under £900,000.

“Such an offer is significantly less than what a court would consider to be reasonable for either divorcing heterosexual couples or separating civil partners in these circumstances,” Ferguson said.

“The Court of Appeal recognised this, calling Peter’s initial offer as ‘quite unrealistic’ and ‘so far from achievable as to be almost fanciful’,” he continued.

Gallagher entered the civil partnership in 2007.