Briers v Briers

Judgment

Sir Ernest Ryder, Senior President:

On 6 May 2015 His Honour Judge Rogers, sitting as a judge of the Family Division of the High Court in Birmingham, made a financial remedy order between parties to a marriage that ended in divorce as long ago as 2005. For the purposes of this judgment, I shall refer to them as husband and wife. The order complained of ordered the husband to pay a lump sum of £1.6m to the wife in four instalments over two and a half years and to transfer to the wife 25% of his Standard Life pension, the Standard Life policy and his Standard Life shares.

The husband appeals with leave of the single judge and submits that the appropriate order should be a lump sum of £500,000 which this court should substitute on setting aside Judge Rogers’ determination in its entirety. The court is very grateful to Mr Jonathan Cohen QC on behalf of the husband and Mr Justin Warshaw QC on behalf of the wife for the quality of their submissions.

The background circumstances can be taken shortly. The parties married in 1984. They were both teachers. In 1988 the husband began a sportswear trading business initially operating out of the garage at the former matrimonial home. He incorporated the business in the same year with the shareholding of 100 shares being divided between himself and the wife in the ratio of 99:1. In 1990 he ceased teaching to concentrate full time on the business. The wife continued to teach, helped in the business and looked after their three children.

In 2002 the parties separated and the husband moved out of the family home. The wife took no further part in the business but continued teaching and looking after the children.

The decree absolute was pronounced in 2005 after what were described as ‘protracted negotiations’ between them. In 2006 the husband paid £150,000 to the wife, in 2007 the wife became the sole owner of the former matrimonial home and in 2008 she transferred her share in the business to the husband. There were no orders made at that time concluding their financial affairs. In 2013 the wife issued her Form A applying for a financial remedy order consequent upon their divorce.

The key issues in the financial remedy proceedings were whether the parties had reached a full and final settlement of their financial affairs and, if not, what a fair distribution would be.

Judge Rogers found that there had not been a full and final settlement in the period between 2003 and 2005. In support of his conclusion he h