With its colourful fleet of delivery vans pootling around some of Britain's smartest streets, online supermarket Ocado has become a middle-class staple.

But behind the company's wholesome image is a tale of marital strife and betrayal - a multi-million-pound divorce row between Ocado's founder and his wife.

This has become so acrimonious that some financial analysts think the grocery firm's share price may even take a tumble.

A spate of divorce settlements involving some of Britain’s most successful retail bosses and their out-of-favour spouses show judges are looking very favourably on the wives who stayed at home raising children while their husbands built up their empires, such as Ocado boss Tim Steiner estranged wife, Belinda, above

On opposing sides of the courtroom in one of Britain's most expensive divorce battles are former merchant banker Tim Steiner, 46, and Belinda, 45, a former PR, his wife of 14 years and mother of his four children.

While he has launched divorce proceedings accusing her of 'unreasonable behaviour', she claims she has been 'obliterated' by her former husband, who is living with a Polish lingerie model two decades his junior.

Despite the legal and emotional turmoil in which she finds herself, Mrs Steiner does have one reason to be positive about her legal separation from the man whose fortune, according to the Sunday Times Rich List, stands at £116 million - it could leave her fabulously wealthy.

While Steiner, 46, has launched divorce proceedings accusing Belinda, 45, of 'unreasonable behaviour', she claims she has been 'obliterated' by her former husband, who is living with a Polish lingerie model two decades his junior Patrycja Pyka, 27, pictured above with the businessman at an even in Mayfair in May 2015

She is far from alone. A spate of divorce settlements involving some of Britain's most successful retail bosses and their out-of-favour spouses show judges are looking very favourably on the wives who stayed at home raising children while their husbands built up their empires.

Earlier this month, Nick Robertson, 48, co-founder of online fashion retailer Asos was ordered to pay former wife Janine, 43, £70 million after the end of their ten-year marriage.

The father-of-two, who is one of Britain's richest men, was forced to sell shares in the firm to meet the huge settlement.

And last month, Superdry tycoon Julian Dunkerton, 51, sold £50 million of his shares in the High Street fashion chain to fund his divorce from Charlotte.

He was following in the footsteps of Superdry's other founder, James Holder, who offloaded shares worth £20 million in 2013 to pay for his divorce.

For the wives in such cases, the situation appears to be rosy - and very different to the experience of the average British divorcee.

Despite the legal and emotional turmoil in which she finds herself, Mrs Steiner does have one reason to be positive about her legal separation from Steiner, and his apparent affair with Pyka, above, as his fortune, according to the Sunday Times Rich List, stands at £116 million - meaning it could leave her fabulously wealthy

As Marilyn Stowe, a top divorce lawyer, puts it: 'Super-rich divorce cases are dealt with on their own terms.

'They don't apply to Mr and Mrs Average. Lower down the spectrum, divorce is all about 'reasonable need' and meeting that need out of what assets there are or finding a way to provide a home for both parties.'

But at the top end, a divorce settlement can be more like a Lottery win.

The landmark White v White divorce case started it all. Involving a very wealthy farming couple and settled by the House of Lords in 2001, the ruling made the concept of equal shares for 'bread-winner and home-maker' the norm.

It also brought an end to the days when a wealthy husband might expect to walk away from a marriage with the lion's share of the family wealth.

Over the 15 years since then the legal ground has shifted hugely in favour of divorcing wives, who can expect to receive half of any wealth built up in a marriage, even if they have never worked outside the home.

Wives in such cases, the situation appears to be rosy - and very different to the experience of the average British divorcee, who may not fair so well should their husbands take up with a lingerie model such as Pyka, above. Super-rich couples, says Marilyn Stowe, a top divorce lawyer, are less likely to settle out of court than ordinary couples who haven't the money to spend fighting divorce cases

And super-rich couples, says Marilyn Stowe, are less likely to settle out of court than ordinary couples who haven't the money to spend fighting divorce cases.

This is partly because the mega-rich tend to stash money in off-shore accounts and trusts, making it very hard for lawyers to tell what the assets actually are.

But even when a husband comes clean about his wealth, uber-wealthy businessmen such as Tim Steiner can turn to a legal loophole, that of 'stellar contribution'. This means the business genius that brought in the millions amounts to a 'special contribution' to the family wealth and, therefore, is entitled to more than a 50 per cent share.

'I would certainly expect Tim Steiner to run that argument in the months ahead,' says Stowe.

When Manchester University graduate Steiner met art dealer's daughter Belinda Cohen in 1995, Ocado didn't exist.

He was a bond trader at Goldman Sachs and she was working in fashion and beauty PR.

They married in a lavish ceremony at Hampstead Garden Suburb synagogue, North London, in 1999.

That year, Steiner quit his job and set up Ocado with two others, raising money from venture capitalists and going into partnership with Waitrose.

The company was floated on the stock market in 2010 and today claims to be the world's largest dedicated online grocery retailer with more than 500,000 regular customers.

Earlier this month, Nick Robertson, 48, co-founder of online fashion retailer Asos, above, was ordered to pay former wife Janine, 43, also above, £70 million after the end of their ten-year marriage

With Ocado's success came a lavish lifestyle. The Steiners and their four children shared a £15 million mansion in Highgate, North London, and a chalet in the ski resort of Courchevel.

When their London home was renovated, Steiner is said to have moved his family into luxury suites at Claridge's hotel.

The couple enjoyed a glamorous social life, rubbing shoulders with Hollywood star Gwyneth Paltrow and retail magnate Sir Philip Green.

According to friends, Belinda Steiner played a significant role in supporting her husband while he built up the business, looking after their children single-handed while he was at the office.

The marriage ended in 2012 with Steiner moving to a large house around the corner, where the couple's children now live, too.

Since then, he has been dating model Patrycja Pyka, 27, who has featured on an over-18s website.

Belinda lives in a garden flat in nearby St John's Wood and has suffered the humiliation of seeing photographs on Facebook of her estranged husband and his lover in the French ski chalet they once shared.

She has accused her husband of being 'a complete control freak' and claims she was not even invited to her twin sons' Bar Mitzvah last year, where, she says, the guests were entertained by topless female cage dancers.

Robertson, the great-grandson of Victorian menswear retailer Austin Reed, has an eye-watering fortune of £220 million plus an OBE for achievement in the world of fashion retailing. He now lives with his personal assistant Charlotte Balin who is 15 years his junior, pictured above

The gloves are well and truly off for their divorce settlement hearing in June. Their legal costs have already spiralled to well over £1 million, but that is a drop in the ocean compared to the amount Steiner may have to pay in the near future.

He has hired Fiona Shackleton, a divorce lawyer with a formidable reputation for protecting the assets of wealthy men. She famously negotiated Prince Charles's split from Diana and that of Sir Paul McCartney from Heather Mills.

And given the generosity of the settlement awarded to the former wife of Asos's Nick Robertson, Steiner has all to fight for.

The mega-rich tend to stash money in off-shore accounts and trusts, making it very hard for lawyers to tell what the assets actually are

Robertson, the great-grandson of Victorian menswear retailer Austin Reed, has an eye-watering fortune of £220 million plus an OBE for achievement in the world of fashion retailing.

When his marriage to Janine collapsed in 2014, he tried to argue that she should receive £30 million. But the housewife and mother of their two young daughters insisted it should be nearer £110 million.

A judge urged them to settle the case out of court, but to no avail. When their battle reached the High Court, Newcastle-born Janine was said to have been of 'negligible means' when she met Robertson.

His company Asos was launched in 2000 at the height of the dotcom boom to sell copies of clothes worn by celebrities. A year later, it was worth £12 million. In 2015, it turned over more than £1 billion.

Robertson, and Janine got together in 2002 after a blind date. They married in Scotland two years later and set up home in an £8 million six-bedroom property in Wimbledon, South-West London.

As well as other homes in France and Oxfordshire, they own a fleet of cars including a Mercedes, a Bentley and a Ferrari. At first, their separation appeared amicable. Both have new partners. Robertson is living with his 32-year-old former PA, Charlotte Balin, in a large Georgian property in South-West London, complete with a sweeping staircase, expansive gardens and its own flagpole.

Last month, fashion boss and Superdry tycoon Julian Dunkerton, 51, from Cheltenham, sold £50 million of his shares in the High Street fashion chain to fund his divorce from his wife Charlotte

But when it came to dividing their assets, the civilised terms upon which the Robertsons parted soon evaporated.

And if Robertson, who stepped down as Asos chief executive last September, believed he shouldn't have had to give away such a huge chunk of his fortune, he was wrong.

For at the High Court, Mr Justice Holman stated, once again, that marriage is a partnership of equals.

Though he accepted Robertson was the 'moneymaker', he said that his wife had been 'an excellent homemaker and an excellent mother' to the couple's girls, who are aged seven and eight.

He went on to order Robertson to pay Janine £70 million, which led to his £20 million shares sell-off.

The Superdry co-founders found themselves in similar positions.

We're not arguing about a few thousand; we're arguing about hundreds of millions

Last month, Julian Dunkerton, who founded the business in 1985 from a Cheltenham market stall, sold four million SuperGroup shares for £48 million, sending the company's share price falling by almost 6 per cent.

The sale was said to be 'due to personal circumstances' when it was announced on the London Stock Exchange.

He is said to have needed the cash to pay off his 41-year-old wife Charlotte, with whom he has two children - a staggering amount given that the couple only married in August 2009, long after Superdry was launched.

During their marriage, the couple lived in a £3.25 million, seven- bedroom, Grade II-listed farmhouse in Lower Dowdeswell, near Cheltenham, which Dunkerton had bought in 2007.

The house was put on the market last summer with a £6.5 million price tag. Meanwhile, Charlotte appears to have found love with a younger man, posting pictures of them together on her Instagram account, partying, skiing and at black-tie events.

In July 2013, Dunkerton's Superdry co-founder James Holder, the 44-year-old entrepreneur behind the Bench fashion brand, raised £20 million by selling off shares to fund his divorce proceedings. He had been married for seven years to Jessica, with whom he has a son.

Despite the huge pay-out, he was named joint 847th on the Sunday Times Rich List in 2015, thanks to his estimated fortune of about £112 million.

Last month, Julian Dunkerton, who founded the business in 1985 from a Cheltenham market stall, sold four million SuperGroup shares for £48 million, sending the company's share price falling by almost 6 per cent

Given the growing reputation of British judges for awarding generous settlements to women, it is hardly surprising that London is fast becoming known as the divorce capital of the world.

Wealthy foreign wives are queuing up to have their cases heard there.

The courts demand transparency about assets and are also more efficient at enforcing court orders thanks to international treaties and a wide-spread respect for British jurisdiction.

'The situation for women has improved massively,' says Ayesha Vardag, a British lawyer nicknamed the Diva of Divorce, thanks to her work on high net worth complex and international divorce cases.

'It doesn't matter if you earned the money or whether you were at home supporting the family, you are seen as an equal partnership,' she says. 'That's not necessarily true in other jurisdictions around the world.

Vardag is currently representing the wife of 77-year-old Laura Ashley boss Dr Khoo Kay Peng.

Former Miss Malaysia Pauline Chai is locked in a £400million divorce battle with her husband of 43 years. The couple have five grown-up children

While he fought to have their case heard in Malaysia, 69-year-old Miss Chai has been granted permission to have it settled in London.

She lives on a sprawling £30 million estate in Hertfordshire, complete with an exotic menagerie of alpacas and llamas, and a dressing room filled with 1,000 pairs of shoes.

While Miss Chai claims he is worth more than £440 million, he maintains his assets are worth only £66 million.

Their case, which has already cost about £6 million, is believed to have been one of the most expensive divorce cases ever to come before the British courts.

The sums involved, admits Vardag, are staggering.

'There's plenty to go round, but there's a huge amount at stake,' she says.