D v D (Production Appointment)
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 1995 |
| Date | 1995 |
| Court | Family Division |
THORPE, J
Ancillary relief – production appointment – limits of discovery within discretion of the court – professional privilege may have to be overridden by the court.
The wife's family were very rich, her father operated many companies in tax havens across the world, the husband was a middle rank manager in one of the companies. The final matrimonial home was valued at over one million pounds. After a long marriage the husband petitioned for divorce on the grounds of the wife's adultery. The marriage was dissolved in April 1992. The husband applied for ancillary relief, disclosing that he had no significant capital assets. A year later the wife's father died, and the husband was made redundant. It took until February 1994 for the wife to concede in an affidavit that her family were very rich, and until September 1994 that she herself had assets worth about half a million pounds. In November 1994 counsel for the husband applied ex parte for production appointments, inter alia against the accountant who had been instrumental in advising the wife's father in his financial arrangements and who reputedly was the author of a document to the effect that the wife's father was worth between £10m and £12m, though for inheritance tax purposes his estate amounted to no more than £100,000.
Wall, J made an order including an injunction restraining the accountant from parting with documents specified in a schedule to the summons of 29 paragraphs. The accountant made it clear in correspondence that his professional and client privilege made it impossible for him to co-operate. The husband's solicitors gave him notice of the present hearing for the purpose of arguing out the production summons. On behalf of the wife (and of the accountant) it was argued that production should be limited to files relevant to the affairs of the wife, should exclude those of her family or the family companies, and should be limited to a period of five years. On behalf of the husband it was argued that disclosure should extend back to 1987 when significant arrangements of the wife's family's fortune had taken place and should exclude from the material contained in the schedule only well-defined assets from which the wife could not or was only remotely likely to benefit.
Held – Where there was such manifest avoidance of full and frank disclosure, the exercise of discretion as to the bounds of production should be broad. If set narrow, there was risk of continued obstruction and of loss of information as to the nature and extent of the respondent's financial circumstances. As inspection would be by an investigative accountant instructed on behalf of the husband, there should be no unnecessary expense involved in disclosing irrelevant material – any document relating to third parties could quickly be excluded by that accountant. In the exercise of the court's power the husband should be entitled to see the documentation relating to the rearrangement of the family fortunes in the late eighties, even though it might predate the breakdown of the marriage. Once it had been made plain to the accountant and to his clients that the privilege which ordinarily shielded such material had been overridden by the jurisdiction of the court, the accountant and the investigative accountant could, as two members of the same profession, co-operate in the efficient and economical exchange of relevant...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
John Robert Charman v Beverley Anne Charman
...to extract relevant documents from a non-party not expressly mandated by the words of s. 2(4) of the Act of 1975. Thus in D v. D (Production Appointment) [1995] 2 FLR 497 Thorpe J., as he then was, in deciding to set a wide boundary around the scope of the documents which he was ordering th......
-
H v H
...Transcript 78/661: it is important to consult the full transcript rather than the abbreviated report in [1979] 9 Fam Law 84); D v D (Production Appointment) [1995] 2 FLR 497; In re L (A Minor) (Police Investigation: Privilege) [1997] AC 16, Vernon v Bosley (No 2) [1998] 1 FLR 304 and Kimber......
-
W (A M) v W (S)
...PROCEEDINGS RULES 1991 SI 1247/1991 (UK) EVIDENCE (PROCEEDINGS IN OTHER JURISDICTIONS) ACT 1975 S2(4) (UK) D v D (PRODUCTION APPOINTMENT) 1995 2 FLR 497 CONSTITUTION ART 41.3.2 CONSTITUTION ART 41.1.1 CONSTITUTION ART 41.1.2 FAMILY LAW Documents Disclosure - Trusts - Beneficiaries - Potenti......
-
M v M (Financial Misconduct; Subpoena Against Third Party)
...As a stranger to the litigation, it would be unreasonable were she expected to meet her own costs. Cases referred to in judgmentD v D[1995] 3 FCR 183, [1995] 2 FLR Frary v Frary[1994] 1 FCR 595, [1993] 2 FLR 696, CA. Morgan v Morgan [1977] 2 All ER 515, [1977] Fam 122, [1977] 2 WLR 712. Sha......