Harold Hamm, the chief executive of oil driller Continental Resources who is embroiled in a bitter divorce, offered to pay his former wife $974.8 million, but she rejected a hand-written check, lawyers for both sides said on Tuesday.
Hamm’s offer would have paid his ex-wife, Sue Ann Arnall, immediately the full cash value of what he owes based on a November divorce ruling by an Oklahoma County judge.
The lawyers said Arnall did not want to accept the check for fear of hurting her appeal of that decision.
Arnall, a former Continental executive who was married to Hamm for 26 years, contends that her award of around $1 billion in cash and assets was inadequate and allowed Hamm to keep the lion’s share of a fortune her lawyers valued as high as $18 billion.
Hamm had already paid his former wife more than $20 million during the divorce proceedings.
Hamm’s appeal contends that the $1 billion award was too steep. Hamm has lost billions tied to the value of his 68 percent stake in Continental in recent months, which his legal team blames on the sharp fall in oil prices.
Because everybody knows a billion dollars never goes as far as you'd like it to…