Details have emerged
of Judge Robinson’s judgment in a written ruling by Mr Justice Moor who had
been asked to analyse a separate specific legal issue.
Mr Justice Moor said
no one involved could be identified but that the husband had been a successful
banker and had subsequently been ordained into the Anglican Church.
In Mr Justice Moor’s
ruling he said Mr Robinson had concluded that the husband had “significant
resources in addition to those disclosed” and “adverse inferences were drawn as
his disclosure was found to be lamentable and not frank”.
Judge Robinson
ordered that he transfer ownership of the £825,000 family home to his wife as
well as some of his other properties.
In addition to this,
the husband’s solicitors were ordered to pay the wife’s legal costs as the
solicitors “knew something which should have put them on further enquiry, which
would have revealed had they thought properly about it that the payment of
their fees from the equity in [the family home] was in part intended to defeat
the Wife's claims".
The law places a duty on both parties to a financial settlement to
disclose to each other (and the court if financial settlement proceedings are
commenced) all their financial circumstances.
This case reinforces the importance that parties must provide full and
frank disclosure of their entire means. If they fail to do so, it may provide
grounds for the court to cancel or ‘set aside’ the order and the offending
party could be ordered to pay all or a proportion of the other party’s legal
costs. There may also be criminal
sanctions under the Fraud Act 2006.