Hvorostovsky v Hvorostovsky

Lord Justice Thorpe:

Introduction

Dimitri Hvorostovsky (hereafter the husband) is a world renowned Russian baritone with a wide-ranging repertoire. His career began in the State Theatre in Krasnoyarsk, a substantial provincial town in Siberia.

His first wife Svetlana (hereafter the wife) was in the Corps de Ballet in the same area. They married in 1989. Svetlana had a child of a previous relationship, Maria, who is now aged 26. The husband always treated her as a child of the family.

As the husband’s career burgeoned the family moved first to Moscow and then, in 1994, to London.

In 1996 their twin boys were born. When they were some 3 years of age the marriage broke down, the husband leaving the family home in June 1996. The family home was in Islington and it is clearly a desirable property, now worth over £1million.

Divorce proceedings followed the separation, a decree absolute being pronounced on 2 nd February 2001. A few days prior thereto the parties and their legal teams assembled for the contested ancillary relief proceedings. The wife was represented by Mr Jonathan Cohen QC and the husband by Ms Lucy Stone QC. These experienced leaders guided their clients to a compromise. The husband ceded the matrimonial home and thus over 80% of the available capital, to the wife. However, he effectively used what became the wife’s sole property as security for an advance of £90,000, that being part of a repayment mortgage, the whole of which the husband was to service and repay within the periodical payments that he was to make to the wife.

Although the parties were ordinarily resident in this jurisdiction they were not domiciled here and a substantial proportion of the husband’s fees were earned abroad. Thus with the aid of expert advice it was agreed that in the year 2001 the husband would provide the wife a budget of £113,000 for herself and the children. In the year 2002 her allowance was to increase to £117,000 plus RPI plus any increase in school fees.

In 2001 the wife’s allowance for the household amounted to £98,150 after stripping out school fees and Maria’s tuition fees at university.

In order to avoid UK income tax the annual allowance was paid monthly from an off-shore bank account in the husband’s name into an off-shore bank account in the wife’s name. So there was no order for periodical payments. The husband’s obligations were recorded in an agreement endorsed on counsels’ briefs.

The Present

Eight years on from the crafting of this sc