Arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi's ex-wife won a divorce payment reported near $874 million, then the largest on record

Adnan Khashoggi earned his fortune brokering arms deals between Western companies and Saudi Arabia. He married Sandra Daly, who took the name Soraya, in 1961^†, and they had five children. They divorced in 1974^†. Soraya sued him in Los Angeles for a share of his wealth, with her claim widely reported at $2.54 billion^†. The resulting settlement was reported at about $874 million, which was then described as the largest divorce payment ever. Reports differ widely on the figure and on whether part of its value was tied to oil prices. A 1991 Forbes report put a buyout figure at $800 million. Khashoggi lost most of his fortune in the 1980s and was tried and acquitted in the United States in 1990 in connection with the Marcos fraud case^†. He died in London in 2017. Soraya Khashoggi died in 2020^†. The reported award stood for decades as the benchmark in lists of the most expensive divorces, though no court record of the final figure has been published.