European stocks are sinking after the long weekend | ||
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After a three day weekend in Germany and the UK, European markets started the week on a bad foot. Here's the scorecard:
Asian markets closed higher. The Shanghai Composite Index ended up 2.02%, followed by the Hang Seng, which rose by 0.96%. In Japan, the Nikkei rose 0.12%. US futures are down too. Ahead of the open, the S&P 500 is down 8 points, while the Dow is 67 points lower. It's an extremely quit day for European data, with nothing of note coming. There's a bundle of data points coming from the US later, including house prices at 2 p.m. London time (9 a.m. ET) and Markit's PMI at 2.45 p.m. (9:45 a.m. ET). We'll be looking out for any developments on Greece's bailout negotiations, which will be going on throughout the week. Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Here's how Floyd Mayweather spends his millions  | ||
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Dale Vince could lose £1.9 million in a 20-year-old divorce case because of this technicality | ||
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Dale Vince, the CEO of Britain's biggest green energy supplier Ecotricity, divorced his first wife in 1992 when they were both new age hippie travellers, penniless and largely living off state benefits. But his ex-wife Kathleen Wyatt is now fighting to get millions of pounds in back-dated cash from him. One of Britain's top divorce lawyers told Business Insider that it's all down to a small paperwork technicality — they forgot to "seal off" the financial arrangements section of their divorce papers. "If you don't close off the financial matters in a divorce case, you technically leave that door open for your former spouse to get in touch and ask for more money, if you do happen to make a lot more in the future," said Ayesha Vardag, the president of her own law firm, Vardags in London. "If there is a huge financial disparity between the two parties, even later down the line, the courts like to help with wealth distribution. Sometimes the courts want to do nice things like that but fundamentally, it was a technicality at the time that led to this case going to the appeals stage." "In divorce cases I have seen, some people will maybe pay a lot more money out in a divorce settlement in order to close off the ability for a former spouse to seek further financial compensation in years to come. Above all, you need to put a tick through that box to close off future claims in the settlement." Dale Vince and Kathleen Wyatt's history
However, when he met Wyatt in 1981, he was just 19 and she was 21. Wyatt already had a child from a previous relationship. They were both broke. They had a son, Dane, in 1983. He now works for Vince's Ecotricity company. They were still both penniless when they divorced in 1992. Vince ended up travelling to Spain with a new partner in a 30-year-old fire engine and continued to lead his hippie lifestyle years later. He did not make his fortune until the 2000s. Currently, Wyatt lives in a council house with her unemployed son Robin, 21, jobless teen mother Jessie, 18, and her unemployed boyfriend Ashley Lloyd, 24, and their three-month-old daughter. Her eldest daughter Emily, 36, is currently in prison. They are children from two other partners. Some 20 years after Vince and Wyatt divorced, Vince's former wife lodged a £1.9 million ($2.9 million) claim against him, despite their short-lived marriage predating the time he became a multi-millionaire from his business. While her initial claim was thrown out of the court in March 2015, Wyatt appealed the decision. This this time the Supreme Court ruled there was "no time limit" for claims for financial provision for ex-spouses. To make matters worse for Vince, he is paying £500,000 ($770,573) in legal costs for both him and Wyatt. The law forces costs to be shared amongst the combined wealth of the parties. Since Wyatt is penniless, Vince has to pay the legal fees. Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Here's how Floyd Mayweather spends his millions  | ||
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Vince now has a net worth of £107 million ($165 million) and his green energy supply business Ecotricity is worth £57 million ($88 million). Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi just sent a Twitter DM about his first year in office to 12.5 million people | ||
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Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi just wrapped up his first year in office — the Hindu nationalist won a landslide and came into government on May 26 last year. Despite the fact that he's running a country where only about a fifth of the people are internet users, he's one of the most forward-thinking world leaders on the use of social media for political campaigning. To keep people up to date with what he's doing, Modi used a method that's not familiar to pretty much any other President or Prime Minister around the world — a direct message on Twitter. To all of his 12.5 million followers. The DM sent Tuesday reads "My message on completion of One Year of Our Government," along with a link to his own site. Here's how that looks:
Some of his Twitter followers enjoying the occasion: Modi also sent out DMs en masse to publicise his manifesto pledges during the 2014 election. For a slightly more even-handed look at Modi's record after a year in office, the Economist has a wide-ranging special report out this week too. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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