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London’s Loss is Milan’s Gain
The grey skies of the Old Bailey have been traded for the golden light of the Piazza de’ Pitti. In a move that signals a seismic shift in the world of ultra-high-net-worth litigation, Ayesha Vardag—Britain’s most formidable divorce lawyer—has officially cemented her Italian conquest. As of January 2026, her firm, Vardags, has launched a flagship office in Milan, positioning itself at the gateway where the world’s wealthy are now flocking.
For decades, London was the undisputed "divorce capital of the world," a title Vardag herself helped cement with her landmark Supreme Court victory in Radmacher v Granatino, which made prenuptial agreements enforceable in the UK. But the tides have turned. With the death knell of the "non-dom" tax regime in Britain, a deluge of billionaires is heading south, seeking Italy’s favourable €200,000 flat-tax cap.
"The UK was attractive, but now they are leaving in droves," Vardag observes from her new base in Florence. "London was the capital of the world—everybody wanted to be there. Now it is becoming sadder as people leave. Italy is saying, ‘Your loss is our gain.’"
The "Pashtun Princess" Who Re-Wrote the Rules
To understand Vardag’s relentless drive, one must look past the headlines about her fees and into her bloodline. Born in Oxford to an English mother and a Pakistani senator, Vardag was raised in what she describes as "church mouse" poverty. Yet, her heritage is one of kings. She descends from the Lodhi tribe, the Pashtun dynasty that ruled northern India before the Moghuls.
That warrior ancestry fuels her legal strategy. She calls her team "divorce detectives," specialists who hunt down hidden assets with the tenacity of forensic accountants. In one infamous case, a husband furious at sharing his wine collection drank the entire cellar’s worth of vintage reds. Vardag simply had the value of the pre-drunk wine added to his assets, ensuring the wife received her share in cash.
This refusal to be outmaneuvered has made her the first call for tycoons, royalty, and heirs. She famously secured a £64 million settlement for Pauline Chai, the former Miss Malaysia, in one of the largest divorce payouts in history.
Controversy and "The Wrong Click"
Her ascent has not been without turbulence. The legal world is still recovering from the viral "wrong click" scandal of 2024, where a junior lawyer at her firm accidentally applied for a final divorce order for the wrong couple on a government portal. When a judge refused to overturn the error—ruling that "the computer says yes"—Vardag publicly blasted the "clumsy" online system, standing fiercely by her staff member and arguing that the state should not dissolve marriages based on a clerical slip.
And then there was "Cardigan-gate." In a leaked email that went viral globally, Vardag once banned her staff from wearing cardigans, dismissing them as "homely" garments. Critics called it elitist; Vardag called it high standards. But in a masterstroke of rebranding, she recently overhauled the dress code entirely. The new policy? "Annabel’s nightclub chic." Gold leather trousers, pink hair, and sequins are now welcome in her corridors, proving that for Vardag, power is about evolution.
La Dolce Vita: A New Empire
Today, Vardag presides over her trans-European empire remotely, often from a museum-quality apartment in Florence overlooking the Palazzo Pitti. Her walls are lined with oil paintings and antique kimonos, and her two Saluki hounds, Sarab and Hala, curl up by the fire.
She lives there with her husband, Dr. Stephen Bence—an astrophysicist turned CEO of her firm—and their blended family. Despite making her fortune from broken marriages, she remains a romantic pragmatist. Her advice to couples? "Keep having sex. Stick the kids in front of the television on a Sunday morning and make sure it happens."
As the British elite pack their bags for Italy, Ayesha Vardag is already there, waiting to welcome them with a glass of Chianti and a pre-nup. The "Diva of Divorce" hasn't just survived the changing tides of history; she has surfed them all the way to the Mediterranean.
