Most people in Virginia have ordered something from the online retail giant Amazon at some point in time, and it seems like the company grows in popularity every day. The CEO of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, has recently settled his divorce with his wife, MacKenzie Bezos.
Under the terms of the couple’s divorce settlement, Bezos will retain 75 percent of the couple’s shares in Amazon and he will retain sole voting authority over his soon-to-be ex-wife’s stock in the company. This means that Bezos has an approximately 12 percent interest in Amazon worth nearly $108 billion, while his wife has approximately a 4 percent interest in the company worth nearly $36 billion. Bezos was also awarded total ownership over The Washington Post and the space company Blue Origin.
The couple resides in Washington and, per Washington law, they must wait 90 days before the court can approve their settlement. While the Amazon stock the Bezoses owned was not divided in half, the couple owns other investments and property. The exact details of the couple’s settlement have not been made available to the public, meaning that Bezos’ wife could have been compensated in other ways.
A high-asset divorce serves as a good reminder that many times a couple going through a divorce can negotiate the legal issues they face, resulting in a settlement agreement that they are both satisfied with. However, even couples of modest means can find that a divorce settlement is preferable to litigation, as it allows the pair to retain control over the outcome of the property division process, along with the outcome of spousal support, child custody and child support, if those issues are present in their divorce.