Wire: BLOOMBERG News (BN) Date: 2009-03-27 09:37:23 
Wife Calls CEO Divorce Threats Foreplay: Ann Woolner (Update1)


     (Adds location of court in sixth paragraph.)

Commentary by Ann Woolner
     March 27 (Bloomberg) -- For people with any depth at all,
divorce wrenches the soul. It transforms a loving life partner
into an unrecognizable jerk they wish never to see again.
     For 66-year-old United Technologies Corp. Chairman George
David, filing divorce petitions worked as a prelude to sex.
     At least, that’s how the story goes according to his soon-
to-be ex-wife, Marie Douglas-David, 36, a Swedish socialite and
former Lazard Freres asset manager. Distantly related to a
Swedish count, she is erroneously called a countess in the
American press, according to a Swedish news report.
     The couple is in court because she is trying to void their
post-nuptial agreement that would give her roughly $32.4
million, mostly in stock in the conglomerate he used to run. The
agreement was worth about $43 million when it was signed. She
now wants $100 million in cash.
     That’s $100 million, plus homes, jewelry and a couple of
Mercedes-Benzes, for little more than six years of an off-and-on
marriage that produced no children.
     As the sordid details of their relationship were aired in
family court in Hartford, Connecticut, this week, to the delight
of the tabloids, Douglas-David told the New York Post the first
of four divorce petitions her husband filed was “a complete
shock.”
     Married in 2002 when he was still chief executive of United
Technologies, the two were virtual newlyweds when a process
server bearing a divorce petition showed up one morning in
August 2004. A tableau of perfect domesticity, they were
drinking coffee and reading newspapers at the beach house they
had rented.

                          Prelude to Sex

     He declared he wanted a divorce. By afternoon, they were
having sex, she told the Post.
     David dropped the divorce petition, only to file another
two months later, with similar results. Well, why not, given how
well that first one turned out?
     And if you have more money than you know what to do with --
he has $329 million by some estimates -- why not use the court
system as an aphrodisiac?
     Then again, don’t take her word as the absolute truth. He
says he filed for divorce because he believed she was cheating
on him.
     David testified that his problem wasn’t how to lure his
wife into the sack. His problem was how to keep her from
dragging him into it, according to news accounts.
     A tryst in Sweden “wasn’t the first time Mrs. David forced
herself on you, is that correct?” one of her celebrity divorce
lawyers, William Beslow, asked David.
     “No, it was not.”

                        Dragged Into Bed

     “There was that time she grabbed you by the arm and pulled
you to the bed?”
     “Yes, frequently.”
     Oh, the cruelty of it all! Imagine a willowy young woman,
120 pounds and about 6 feet tall, news stories say, wrestling
into bed a man 100 pounds heavier and slightly taller than she,
even if he is 30 years older.
     If you think that’s bad, consider what that monster of a
husband did to her.
     To manipulate her into signing the post-nup in 2005 during
one of their détentes, he bought her everything she could
possibly want, without complaint.
     Do you believe it? That cad!
     In the last year alone, he spent $600,000 on her. He says
he did it to mend the marriage. She says he did it to control
her.

                         Under His Thumb

     She offers other, more sinister-sounding tactics he used to
keep her under his thumb, all of them in dispute. She says he
forced her to leave her job at Lazard, for example. He says the
firm let her go because as the wife of a fabulously wealthy man,
she was no longer “hungry enough” for Wall Street.
     Those of you who think greedy plaintiffs’ lawyers, wily
corporate attorneys, cowboy prosecutors or sleazy criminal
defense lawyers are ruining the system, visit family court.
     True, this case typifies divorce litigation as much as the
O.J. Simpson murder trial typified criminal cases. In both
instances, the extreme lawyering shows that people with the
money and the will can turn court proceedings into a soap opera
that demeans everyone involved.
     Douglas-David personifies the gold digger using youthful
beauty to exploit an older man. It’s an image that women who
earn their way in the world, whether in jobs or as true partners
with their working husbands, wish would vanish.

                        Trophy Wife Label

     Douglas-David tried to drop the trophy-wife label by
alleging the two discussed his business. She made news when her
lawyer asked David whether they had discussed United
Technologies buying 3M Co.
     “No,” he said. (The merger never occurred.)
     For his part, David makes real the stereotype of a wealthy
man who looks ridiculous for draping a woman young enough to be
his daughter in jewels and giving her free run of his money. He
whisked her away on a $200,000 Mediterranean yacht cruise
($9,000 in caviar) in a futile attempt to save the marriage.
     How could someone who built a massive conglomerate so
successfully be so stupid about women?
     OK, don’t answer that.
     They both come off as spoiled brats, especially at a time
when thousands of out-of-work Wall Streeters and Main Streeters
are wondering where their next paycheck will come from.
     The claim that $32.4 million isn’t enough is just too much.

     (Ann Woolner is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions
expressed are her own.)