The divorce industry in the UK is worth more than £1-billion (about R22-billion) a year and mega-bucks settlements abound. This week we learnt that a stay-at-home mum called Jane Morris was awarded almost £500000 while her company boss husband Peter was left with nothing.But this is small fry compared with recent high-profile cases such as that of Laura Ashley boss Dr Khoo Kay Peng, who is locked in a £400-million divorce battle with his former wife of 43 years, Pauline Siew Phin Chai.For the divorce lawyers working at this end of the spectrum, such cases are big business. The highest flyers can command seven-figure salaries (typically they charge £600 an hour or more), allowing them to live almost as luxuriously as their clients. They are also privy to fascinating insights into the lives of the super-rich."When it comes to divorce, I've seen everything," says Marilyn Stowe, a top divorce lawyer. "There was a wife who sold the Steinway piano without the knowledge of her pianist husband; a wife who sawed the legs off a Chippendale cabinet and delivered it, with its removed legs, to her husband; and a wife who ran a bath of scalding water and bleach, into which she dumped all her husband's suits and ties."Some clients claim to have sold assets - which otherwise would have been shared with their ex - for remarkably low prices. Miraculously, once the case is over, these same assets reappear in their ownership."The last couple of years have seen the record £337-million pay-out by financier Sir Chris Hohn, while former Oasis singer Liam Gallagher was forced to hand over half of his £11-million fortune to his former wife Nicole Appleton after an £800000 fight.Vanessa Lloyd Platt, another divorce lawyer, believes such cases have been fuelled by society's increasingly aggressive mood. "In general, people are behaving a lot worse: no one has time, everyone is angry, people have unrealistic expectations and that's reflected in the way families are treating one another and has divorce lawyers rubbing their hands with glee," she says.The richer halves of couples concealing their assets - or the poorer half claiming they are doing so - is an increasingly common phenomenon, she says. Last summer came the latest instalment in the long-running case of oil baron Michael Prest, who claimed he was £48-million in debt, though his estranged spouse Yasmin estimated his wealth at "tens if not hundreds of millions of pounds". Appeal judges threatened Prest with a jail sentence for failing to pay £360000 owed in maintenance.Previously, there was the case of property tycoon Scot Young, who was jailed for six months over his refusal to pay his ex-wife Michelle and their two teenage daughters maintenance, claiming his £400-million fortune had evaporated, leaving him bankrupt. The saga ended tragically last year when Young died after falling from the roof of his £3-million central London penthouse.According to Ayesha Vardag, who has acted for Pauline Chai and Michelle Young, hiding assets is so common that her firm, Vardags, established a "financial forensics team" to track them down.But why do people who are already so rich go to such lengths to hold on to cash they would never miss, risking costly and stressful legal battles at best and imprisonment at worst? Lloyd Platt says: "The very wealthy are often very stingy and never happy because they're driven constantly by the pressure to outdo somebody."But Sandra Davis of Mischon de Reya, who's acted for, among others, Jerry Hall, Thierry Henry and Princess Diana, suggests there's often a burning sense of injustice, too, not least at the fact that English courts tend to favour dividing assets 50:50."Most people feel such a split's unfair if one partner did nothing to participate in building up their wealth [but] enjoyed the fruits of the other person's labour," says Davis, who charges £610 an hour. "And that can encourage some people to be less than honest about their financial affairs."Witnessing such vitriol must occasionally be soul-destroying for the lawyers. "What's depressing is seeing very sweet people who are not greedy being badly treated and then seeing spoilt nasty women who get what they want," says Lloyd Platt. "And it upsets all divorce lawyers when you see people treating children badly."Still, she adores her work. "I find people's behaviour fascinating: like the wife who'd not spoken to her husband for 15 years, communicating with him by Post-Its. You see this bizarreness every day and it never gets boring." ..