Ouch ! to the tune of £48 million

LONDON - A multimillionaire insurance magnate said Thursday he would challenge a judge's order that he give his ex-wife £48 million in cash and assets in one of the biggest divorce settlements in British history.

John Charman said the judgment was "poor and blatantly discriminatory. The size of the award is grotesque and unfair."

Judge Paul Coleridge made his ruling last week, but details were only made public Thursday.

The judge ordered Charman, 53, to pay a £40 million lump sum to his former wife Beverley. The settlement also includes £8 million in assets already in her name. The judge said the total amount was just under 37 percent of John Charman's assets.

The couple were married for 29 years before their divorce last year and have two adult children.

The judge said that while "fairness dictates" a 50-50 split of assets, Beverley had been "prepared to accept a 45/55 percent split to recognize what has come to be called the husband's special/stellar contribution to the generation of the wealth."

Her former husband disagreed, the judge said, appearing "genuinely bemused that the wife should regard his 20 million pound offer as anything other than reasonable, even generous."

British divorce courts are being called upon to handle increasingly large and lucrative cases. Interest in the topic has been piqued by the upcoming divorce of Paul McCartney and model Heather Mills McCartney after four years of marriage. Observers are keen to see what share Mills McCartney will get of the former Beatle's estimated $1.5 billion fortune.