War Episode 5: The plot thickens, but the legal advice doesn't improve

As those of you following me will know, I have been avidly watching the new series WAR, billed as a battle over a scandalous, high‑stakes divorce “set against a backdrop of love, scandal, betrayal, and ambition”.

If however your brain is still recovering from the season finale of Celebrity Traitors, (my take: Miranda and Michael Sheen should have won and James Blunt might have done better had he not thrown his toys out of the pram!), I will precis where we have got to so far. So, quick recap, Sienna Miller is a glamorous film star being divorced by her billionaire tech mogul hubby played by Dominic West. They have retained eye wateringly expensive, if seemingly incompetent, London lawyers to represent them. They have ineffectually tried mediation and arbitration and are now apparently “going to litigation”. I don’t know where in the legal world people actually talk like that! We family lawyers may say we are going “to issue” (court proceedings) or “go to court” but we don’t “go to litigation”! Litigation Is not somewhere you “go”! But I digress.

Going to litigation, apparently

We are now on Episode 5. Now I found this episode quite confusing. Sienna’s legal team are apparently on the edge of bankruptcy and in consequence desperate to settle. But why? Sienna is not exactly short of cash. Not sure she needs 5 lawyers each probably on a grand an hour plus VAT in each and every meeting with an army of junior lawyers scuttling around in the background, but she can afford it. Most family lawyers bill monthly. So they send her a bill at the end of each month and she pays it. They can pay their rent and the couriers (see below) and everyone is happy. In fact the longer it goes on the bigger the bill will be so from a financial point of view you’d think they wouldn’t want to settle.

Millions, billions and missing valuations

I am also losing track of what Sienna is actually after. Let’s remind ourselves that we haven’t actually had these famous Zephyr shares valued yet so we don’t know how many zillions Dom is worth and I will stand corrected (I am watching with a glass of wine in one hand and a chocolate biscuit in the other so not taking notes as we go) but I am sure she started off saying she wanted £175m, then last week she wanted half a billion and this week she wants £375k? And weren’t her Team saying she’d take £45k at some point; I probably misheard that; blame the Sauvignon.

Dom’s super plan to transfer his shares to his financial advisor is still on track. Still a very bad idea. It’s not as though no one has thought of that before! (Spoiler alert; it won’t work!)

A mole, a name and a questionable legal argument

The episode ends with the ”mole” in Sienna’s legal team realising he’s messed up (by the way don’t these people use email? For a firm in financial distress, it would save all those courier’s charges!)

Anyway, Sienna’s Team is a bit happier (they won’t be when they find out about the mole). Sienna’s let slip that she came up with the name Zephyr so apparently this means (according to Team Sienna; not in the real world) that the company was a joint venture and she is entitled to half (P.S. she isn’t). I can’t help thinking that Team Sienna would be doing better if they actually took full instructions at the start, briefed a half way competent barrister early on and actually took steps to find out what Don is actually worth before they tell him how much they want. But what do I know I’m only Head of Family Law at Geldards?!

How will WAR end?

My bet is that Sienna and Dom get back together, Team Sienna sue Team Dom and the Mole gets found out, struck off and in a Shakespearean denouement gets accidentally (or otherwise) run over by Sienna’s phantom Ferrari as she and Dom sail off into the sunset or Hampstead or wherever Dom has his palatial pile.

I can’t wait for Episode 6!