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July 24, 2014
FAMILY DIVISION
United Kingdom
CORAM
Judgment
Mrs Justice Roberts :
Introduction
Over the course of 10 days in October last year (2013), I dealt with a fact-finding hearing in financial remedy proceedings. I delivered a reserved judgment in January this year. It dealt with all aspects of computation and, in anticipation of issues as to costs, many and detailed allegations and cross-allegations which the parties made against one another as to conduct. Those issues went to both litigation conduct and conduct in the wider sense recognised by s. 25(2)(g) of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 . In particular, I made a raft of findings in relation to the wife’s unauthorised dealings with a Russian property portfolio and the husband’s failure to disclose (until a very late stage of the proceedings) an offshore bank account which contained almost US$850,000. That judgment dealt with all aspects of the computation exercise which was a necessary precursor to the task which has occupied me over the course of five days this week : the distribution exercise.
This couple, between them, have now spent a total of almost £1.25 million on legal costs. Ignoring any notional reattribution of funds to the wife’s account, the global assets which are now available for division in this case are agreed to be slightly in excess of £5 million. Of that sum, £1.76 million is tied up in pension funds. It is agreed that these funds should remain with the husband who is now, as I have found, all but retired. Thus, their combined costs bill represents about 38% of the remaining liquid resources which will be needed to provide homes for each of them, an income for the wife and the discharge of a significant raft of debt. In this context, it is a staggering figure. The near financial ruin which these proceedings have inflicted on this family is compounded by the fact that, even now, each continues to spend significant further sums on various private detection agencies doggedly pursuing the other in terms of their mutual suspicions that each has still to make full and frank disclosure of their finances. They are sums which this family cannot afford if their three children are to have any hope of completing their school careers in private education (an aspiration which their parents share), and I have already indicated my intention at the conclusion of these proceedings to make orders which will ensure (so far as is possible) that this now comes to an end.
Because this is, in effect, the resumption of a part-heard matter, I pr
AI Generated Summary
Mrs Justice Roberts issues a distribution judgment in complex financial remedy proceedings following a 16-year relationship. After a prior computation judgment and extensive fact-finding, the court confronts severe resource depletion from 1.25 million in legal costs and a 1 million notional add-back from the wifes unauthorized sale of a Russian property, alongside the husbands late disclosure of US$845,065 offshore. Needs predominate. Property R must be promptly marketed; adopting US$3.5m as a realistic value, deductions include taxes, CGT, tenants deposit, and a 100,000 education fund, with equal division thereafter. The wife retains Property A and land at K; FC will be transferred to her after the R sale, and she will service the mortgage meanwhile. The husband must pay 229,497 toward the Novitas loan and 70,503 from sale proceeds, plus 30,000 toward childrens maintenance. A departure from equal sharing is justified, leaving roughly 54.22% to the husband and 45.78% to the wife.