Husbands hiding wealth get burned in U.K. divorces
LONDON— London restaked its claim to be the divorce capital of the world as the U.K.’s highest court ruled two ex-wives are entitled to larger divorce settlements because their husbands hid their true wealth.
Alison Sharland, whose husband, Charles Sharland, co-founded software company AppSense Ltd., originally received £10.3 million ($20.6 million) as part of a settlement. She later found he had been having discussions with investment bankers to float the company, valuing it much higher than originally claimed.
“By the husband’s fraud and the judge’s order, she had been deprived of her right to a full and fair hearing of her claims,” Judge Brenda Hale said handing down the ruling in London Wednesday.
The U.K. Supreme Court said the lawsuit should be reopened at a lower court.
The decision could “open the floodgates for many previous divorce agreements to be revisited,” Joanna Farrands, a lawyer at Barlow Robbins, said in an email.
Varsha Gohil settled for about £270,000 ($540,000) in 2004 from her ex-husband. He was later convicted and jailed for money laundering as much as £37 million ($73 million).
The Supreme Court ruled that at the time of the divorce the husband failed to disclose all his assets.
“Perseverance wins out,” Graham Coy, a lawyer at Mundays, said in a statement.
“This is a victory for common sense and a defeat for dishonesty — it just goes to show that if you don’t put all your cards on the table when divorcing it might come back to bite you further down the line.”
The divorce is the latest high-stakes legal battle to make its way through British courts.
An oil trader’s ex-wife won a Supreme Court ruling giving her the right to force offshore companies owned by her former husband, Michael Prest, to turn over assets as part of a settlement of £17.5 million ($35 million) in 2013.