OS and DSOS v DS (Oral disclosure: Preliminary hearing)
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 06 October 2004 |
| Neutral Citation | [2004] EWHC 2376 (Fam) |
| Docket Number | Case No: LN02D00278 |
| Court | Family Division |
| Date | 06 October 2004 |
[2004] EWHC 2376 (Fam)
The Honourable Mr. Justice Coleridge
Case No: LN02D00278
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
FAMILY DIVISION
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
Nicholas Mostyn QC and Tim Bishop (instructed by Withers) for the Petitioner
Lewis Marks QC and James Ewins (instructed by Rooks Rider) for the Respondent
Hearing dates: 4 th—6 th October 2004
Approved Judgment
I direct that pursuant to CPR PD 39A para 6.1 no official shorthand note shall be taken of this Judgment and that copies of this version as handed down may be treated as authentic.
The Hon. Mr. Justice Coleridge
The Hon. Mr Justice Coleridge:
Today I approved a settlement of an application for ancillary relief. In round terms the value of the settlement to the wife was £2m. Nothing exceptional arises out of the fact or amount of the settlement. However the procedural route by which the settlement was achieved was novel and, dare I say, innovative. Following settlement Counsel have invited me to set out shortly the procedure adopted in this case as it is thought to be potentially of wider professional interest. I agree with them and am happy to do so.
The background facts are simple. This was a case involving a marriage of some eight years between a husband and wife both of whom had been married before. There was a twenty year age difference between them and there were grown up children but not of this union. The husband was a wealthy man by the time of the marriage. His wealth was generated largely from his commercial interests in Africa. By the time of the separation these interests were contained within corporate structures based in offshore tax havens (Jersey and British Virgin Islands). It was a very complex picture with a complex international history.
The wife's petition was issued as long ago as February 2002 and her Form A in October 2002. There were contested maintenance pending suit proceedings. By the time of the First Appointment in March 2003 it was apparent that the underlying financial issues were complicated and hotly contested. Lengthy Questionnaires were served and answered which, inevitably gave rise to further questions; applications were made to join other parties (both corporate and human); and eventually further applications were made for leave to serve letters of request abroad. The whole application was properly transferred to the High Court and it was first listed before me by way of a further First Appointment on 14 October 2003.
At that hearing I allocated the case to myself and made a comprehensive raft of orders directed to the provision of further detailed information by the husband and designed to timetable the case to conclusion. Many of the orders for disclosure were in fact by consent. I did not at that stage join any other parties as the husband was indicating that he would "use his best endeavours to obtain information" from those mentioned on the list of potential parties. The wife at that stage was content to accept that course. As part of the case management a further directions hearing was scheduled for 19 February 2004.
Entirely predictably, by the time of the February 2004 hearing there remained or had arisen, so far as the wife was concerned, dozens of unanswered questions. So, understandably and conventionally, that hearing was intended to deal with the further questionnaires and the applications to join and for leave to serve letters of request. By this stage a final hearing had been fixed for ten days in May 2005.
It was at that stage that the procedure took a novel turn.
It occurred to me in my pre-reading for the February 2004 directions hearing that it would be highly desirable, before making any further decisions about disclosure or production of further documents or joinder of other parties, to have the opportunity of hearing from the husband on oath in relation to a number of the crucial, central and highly contested financial issues, both historical and current. As practitioners in this field know only too well, there are often innocent explanations for transactions. And on the other hand decisions to join third parties to expensive complex litigation in which they are only likely to figure peripherally are not lightly made. Furthermore, although certain explanations had been tendered the plausibility of such explanations normally has to wait until it can be tested at the...
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