Bezeliansky v Bezelianskaya

Judgment Approved

Lord Justice McFarlane :

The four applications that are currently before this court each arise in relation to the working out and enforcement of orders for financial provision made at the conclusion of divorce proceedings between wealthy Russian spouses who were residing in England and Wales at the time of their divorce in 2009.

Although a decree absolute of divorce was pronounced as long ago as 24 th November 2009, the outstanding issues relating to financial provision were not concluded until 9 th January 2013 when a comprehensive consent order was made by Holman J in the Family Division.

The first application before this court is an application by the husband, as I shall call him, for permission to appeal against a subsequent order made by Moor J on 2 nd March 2015 which made substantial variation to the capital provision of the original January 2013 consent order. The other three applications are straightforward appeals against committal orders made by Hayden J on 18 th March, 20 th March and 23 rd March 2015 for which permission to appeal is not required. The applications were considered on paper by Black LJ on 29 th April 2015 when she directed a stay of the committal orders and also directed that the application for permission to appeal against the decision of Moor J should be listed before the full court, with the appeal to follow if granted, on the same occasion as the three committal appeals were heard.

Background

The husband and wife married on 14 th April 2000 and moved to take up residence in England in 2004. The only child of their family, a girl, M, was born on 15 th November 2006 and is now therefore aged 9 years. As I have already indicated, the divorce petition was issued in June 2009 with decree absolute five months later in November. Following the separation the wife has continued to live in London with M. The husband has been based abroad and, certainly in recent times, has been resident in Israel. The wife has subsequently re-married but, we are told, that marriage has sadly failed. The husband has, in fact, re-married twice since the divorce and is now living with his fifth wife.

Capital provision within the financial dispute focussed upon the division between the parties of three particular residential properties, one in Monaco, one in Moscow and a third in Paris. The basic structure of the consent order made by Holman J on 9 th January 2013 provided for the Monaco property and the Moscow property to be tran