Goddard-Watts v Goddard-Watts

Macur LJ:

Introduction

Julia Goddard-Watts is the second wife of James Goddard-Watts. They have been separated since 2009 and were divorced in 2010. Nevertheless, as is conventional and convenient in such cases, I identify them as the wife and the husband throughout this judgment.

The wife and the husband appeared to settle by consent the financial relief claims arising from their divorce in 2010. Subsequently, it was found on two separate occasions that the husband had, first, misrepresented his assets and, second, failed to make appropriate disclosure of likely significant capital accumulations in the foreseeable future. Consequently, two ‘final’ financial relief orders have been set aside. This appeal, twelve years after the first court order, arises from the third determination of the wife’s claims in January 2022 by Sir Jonathan Cohen (“the judge”).

The wife appeals the order made, and arrived at, by the judge adopting what is described as “the Kingdon approach”. That is, the judge relied upon the determination made by Moylan J (as he then was) in the first rehearing of the wife’s financial relief application in 2016, that she had received an appropriate share of, what is effectively, the husband’s company known as ‘CBA’ in 2010. The wife contends that she cannot receive a ‘fair’ resolution of her claim without a root and branch investigation of all financial matters de novo; to do otherwise means that the husband has benefitted from the fraud he perpetrated.

Unfortunately, the fact of deliberate non-disclosure in matrimonial financial disputes is not uncommon, although notably, as Holman J said in what was the second set aside judgment in these proceedings: “A second such application in the same case is vanishingly rare and is probably unique.” ( [2019] EWHC 3367 (Fam) at [2]).

The wife contends that there continues to be a dearth of authority as to the fair disposal of financial claims when earlier orders have been set aside because of fraudulent non-disclosure; see Kingdon v Kingdon [2010] EWCA 1409 at [33].

In granting permission to appeal the single judge, King LJ, determined that “there is a real possibility that the judge fell into error in adopting a Kingdon /needs approach at the rehearing of the case” and also that “[t]here is a compelling reason to hear the appeal in order for the court to consider the role of Kingdon and how to approach a case where on the one hand the increase in the value of the company is not part of th