The bonus benefit of divorcing in Scotland

Want to keep your bonus out of the hands of your ex? Moving north of the border provides you with a neat little loophole.

In an admittedly underhand exercise, a fund manager - at the time working for Standard Life Investments - is accused of luring his estranged wife to Edinburgh under the guise of reconciliation, only to present her with divorce papers, according to the Daily Mail.

Under Scottish law bonus payments aren't assessed when considering salary, so Mark Niznik was able to divorce his wife Frances and only face alimony on his base.

"It's as if Mark lured me up just so he could divorce in Scotland to protect his fortune," said the former Mrs Niznik.

This is clearly a lesson in the scurrilous art of duplicity, but it does throw into the spotlight how financial services workers in Scotland could protect the majority of their income in the wake of a marriage break-up. England, meanwhile, has the reputation of the most female-friendly place when it comes to divorce settlements.

The average portfolio manager salary in Scotland is around the 60k-80k mark, rising to 90k-150k at the more senior level, according to headhunters. Bonus, dependent on performance, can often be multiples of salary.

Niznik, for example, is said to have pulled in around 250k in 2006 in bonus payments.

This case looks like small fry when you consider the biggest ever banker divorce settlement. Robert Goldmann, a US banking mogul, was forced to pay $45m to his wife Vira - or exactly half of his fortune.

Lower down the pecking order in Scotland, in areas like fund administration or investment operations, bonuses rarely come in above 10-20% of salary, according to figures from recruiters Joslin Rowe, making the legal loophole rather less alluring...