Husband pays the price for dishonesty in financial remedies case

A husband who exhibited “disgraceful behaviour” during the course of financial remedy proceedings has paid the price for that behaviour, both by receiving a smaller settlement and by being ordered to pay the wife’s costs.

The case concerned the wife’s financial remedies application, following a marriage that had lasted some twenty-four years. There were three children of the marriage, now aged 23, 22 and 16, all of whom lived with the wife.

During the marriage the husband had been the breadwinner, and the wife had been the homemaker. The husband worked as a self-employed financial consultant. He had been “hugely successful”, with the result that the parties had enjoyed a high standard of living.

The judge hearing the wife’s application found that the husband had behaved badly in connection with the application in a number of ways, including:

1. That the husband had failed to make full and honest disclosure of his means. The judge said that the husband had “engaged in a frustrating and confounding process of obfuscatory disclosure”, which still remained incomplete by the time of the final hearing. The husband, he said, had been “thoroughly and determinedly dishonest”.

2. That the husband had “defied court orders with impunity”, including not complying with an earlier order to pay maintenance pending suit to the wife (i.e. a temporary maintenance order, pending the final hearing of the wife’s application), with the result that the maintenance was in arrears in the sum of £48,500.

3. That the husband had, on occasions too frequent for the court to do justice to, been demonstrated to not be telling the truth. For example, the husband had sought to ‘plead poverty’, whilst spending money on himself at an “obscene” level. The husband had, for example, spent €2,137 on a clutch/wallet for what he described as a delayed birthday present for the wife of a friend who had been providing him with somewhere to stay.

The judge found that in conducting himself in this way the husband had “done himself absolutely no favours at all”, and said that: “The consequences of this sorry state of affairs will be carried by the husband and not by the wife.”

And indeed they were.

The judge indicated that he might have made another maintenance order, which would have met the wife’s income needs, in which case the capital assets could have been divided between the parties (presumably equally).

However, in the light of the husband’s behaviour, that was simply not an option. The husband had failed to pay the maintenance pending suit, and was now living out of the jurisdiction, meaning that enforcement of any maintenance order would be difficult, if not impossible.

Accordingly, the judge decided to ‘capitalise’ the maintenance, by awarding the wife 71% of the assets. The court, he said, had been driven to this position by the husband’s behaviour – if he had behaved reasonably and lawfully it would have been different.

In addition, the judge ordered the husband to pay some £54,000 towards the wife’s legal costs, in the light of “the egregious and dishonest conduct of litigation by the husband”.

It is of course natural to be tempted to do everything you can to obstruct a financial remedies claim made against you. However, this case is a salutary warning that such behaviour can have serious consequences.

You can read the full report of the case here.

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