Madonna may think twice about filing for divorce in England, as a string of high profile have settlements won London the reputation of being the divorce capital of the world - for the poorer partner in a marriage.
The pop singer is reported not to have signed a pre-nuptial agreement with Guy Ritchie, which might have helped to limit his ultimate payout.
Faced with judgements such as the £48m award to Beverley Charman from her insurance magnate husband John's £161m fortune in 2006, Madonna might decide she can hang on to more of the couple's reported £300m fortune by filing in the US, where awards to partners are generally lower.
"New York might be a better place in terms of what she might have to pay out," said Elizabeth Baghurst, associate at Boodle Hatfield in Oxford.
"For someone like Madonna, who is very wealthy, the UK is not at the present time thought to be a good place to have your divorce, as the payouts are big.
"She would have to meet the residency requirements to fall under New York jurisdiction, but she has a home there (a £2m apartment overlooking Central Park)."
If Guy Ritchie tried to file for divorce in London, the ensuing battle over jurisdiction could make the divorce drag on for over a year - a far cry from Madonna's reported desire to have the whole matter done and dusted by Christmas. But trying to conclude a divorce in eight weeks was always going to be a tall order.
"Even if you have reached an agreement about everything, to get a divorce by Christmas is pushing it," says Ms Baghurst. "The normal duration is 12-16 weeks, to give time to serve papers within set time limits and to obtain a timeslot at court."
Assuming the couple can't agree and the case does go ahead at the High Court in London, the quantum - exactly how much each side could expect to walk away with - would be decided by legal argument over the so-called Section 25 factors listed in the 1973 Matrimonial Causes Act, says Elizabeth Hicks, head of family law at Irwin Mitchell in London.
The process starts with each partner disclosing to the court everything they own and earn - a point of controversy in Heather Mills' divorce from Sir Paul McCartney, when she claimed his fortune topped £800m but the court put it at £400m.
Wealth and property which predate the relationship are usually treated differently from wealth built up during the marriage, where courts may consider a more equal split, says Ms Hicks.
The Section 25 factors affecting the division include the length of the marriage, the standards of living that both parties have got used to, their respective ages, their earning capacities, past and present and even future income, and whether either has placed their career on hold to help the other - possibly a sore point with RItchie, whose film directing career has languished during the marriage, and is only now starting to revive.
After time spent living together and eight years of marriage, the court would be unlikely to reduce Ritchie's payout because the couple's relationship was a short one - unlike Mills's four year marriage to Sir Paul, which ended with a £24.3m settlement.
Conduct is not normally taken into account unless it involves attempted murder or serious financial wrongdoing, so rumours linking Madonna's name with US basketball star Alex 'A-Rod' Rodriguez would probably play no part.
Madonna and Ritchie are reported to have fallen out over their children, with the singer keen to adopt a second child from Africa and the film director opposed. Ritchie is also said to be unhappy that Lourdes, 12, Rocco, 8, and David, 2, are being uprooted by Madonna's international lifestyle.
The family division of the High Court would only agree to rule on the children's future if the couple were unable to agree, and it would base any ruling on the best interests of the children.
Lourdes' reported desire to see more of her natural father, fitness trainer Carlos Leon who is allegedly staying in one of Madonna's New York flats at present, might be taken into account, although Hicks says that lawyers and courts will always urge a divorcing couple to keep as much continuity in children's lives as possible, with their holidays divided between two parents.
Hicks urged the warring couple to try to settle out of court by using collaborative law, a process imported from the US where each takes their own lawyer into mediation sessions, and where the lawyers are sacked if they fail to help their clients reach agreement. She added that a repeat of the Mills-McCartney divorce bloodbath was unlikely.
"I would have thought that because of who they are, they would just split the capital, and he would walk away from it and she would walk away from it," said Ms Hicks. "He wasn't penniless before the marriage."
Ms Baghurst put a settlement of £50m for RItchie as within the bounds of possibility, but Ms Hicks said that, with all the variables, a figure was too difficult to call.
Ayesha Vardag of Ayesha Vardag Solicitors says a Ritchie and Madonna divorce could dwarf the figures involved in the Mills-McCartney break-up.
“While clearly Madonna has been the bigger hitter, arguably Guy Ritchie has had to take a back seat in his own career in order to back her up and support the family emotionally during her demanding work”, Vardag says.
“The law doesn’t discriminate between breadwinner and home maker - it doesn’t in most circumstances matter who earned the money if they were married and therefore a team. One way or another, this divorce should result in a huge payout for Guy Ritchie if properly handled.”
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