Final order of Moor J in financial remedy proceedings involving a husband who had continually breached court orders, failed to attend hearings, and provided unreliable and ‘demonstrably untrue’ evidence.

Background

H (56) and W (59) married in 1994 and separated in 2022, after which W initiated divorce and financial remedy proceedings. W was a homemaker. H was involved primarily in a port business. The shares in the business, along with $14m of US treasury notes, had been transferred to H by his father, an extremely successful businessman.

H had, since an early stage in the proceedings, failed to engage. Initially, H had stated that this was due to medical reasons, and later due to attendance at a ‘rehab clinic’; [11].

H failed to attend a number of hearings at which orders were made in favour of the wife in his absence. These included MPS/LSPO, third party disclosure, third party debt orders, a personal injunction against H and his employees and, ultimately, a worldwide freezing injunction. W sought a Hadkinson order, however this was refused by Moor J, primarily on the basis that final order had not yet been obtained – summarised here.

After further non-attendance at court, W made a successful committal application against H – summarised here. Moor J sentenced H to 56 days in custody, suspended on terms that he file a fully completed Form E. Within that judgment, Moor J called H’s conduct ‘as bad a case of non-compliance with court orders as this court has ever seen’.

W had obtained a number of Imerman documents which made reference to transfers of several millions of pounds to overseas accounts and proposed transactions with international investors, one of which referenced figures in the billions of pounds. H denied the legitimacy of these documents within his evidence.

Non-disclosure

The ‘magnetic feature’ of the case was the allegations of non-disclosure made against H. A summary of the authorities in respect of non-disclosure may be found at [66]. Moor J was highly critical of H’s evidence, who he described as an ‘extraordinary, completely unreliable, at times entertaining but, overall, entirely unsatisfactory witness’; [88].

Moor J found at [79] that H’s evidence stretched credibility too far, specifically by reference to repeated instances in which H claimed that he had been defrauded out of enormous sums of money, totalling c.£5.4m; [95].

Notably, whilst giving evidence, H told the court that he was wearing a cheap Casio watch, and not what appeared to be a gold Rolex watch. The following day, H admitted this was a lie, saying it was a ‘wind up’; [85]. Ultimately Moor J concluded that H was ‘entirely dishonest and there is no doubt that he has done his best to “pull the wool” over the court’s eyes’; [95].

Adverse inferences

W sought a plethora of adverse inferences [38] to be made against H, including in respect of the Imerman documents, H’s lifestyle, H’s failure to disclose bank statements, and inferences that H owned over £2m in watches and a £750,000 Rolls Royce.

Moor J considered that he was entitled to draw adverse inferences in respect of the scale of H’s wealth having ‘formed the very clear conclusion that I cannot rely on a word the Husband says’; [74]. The disclosed assets had a value of £16.7m. In light of the evidence that Moor J had heard from the parties and the details of their standard of living, Moor J took the assets in the case as being approximately £50m net.

This figure was comprised of H’s shares, which were valued at £30m ([100]) to reflect an offer to purchase 50% for £15m, plus an additional £20m to reflect H’s non-business wealth. Insofar as this was unfair on H, said Moor J, ‘he has only himself to blame’; [97].

Outcome

Applying Standish at [63], Moor J considered that £25m of the £50m assets was matrimonial in nature. Of that figure, W was awarded 50%. Moor J considered this to be an acceptable division of the overall assets given the contributions of H’s father; [110].