Women divorcees ‘tricked’ into losing out on cash

LONDON: Two women who claimed their ex-husbands tricked them into accepting smaller divorce settlements should have their cases re-examined to see if they should get more money, Britain’s top court said yesterday in landmark rulings.

Alison Sharland and Varsha Gohill had argued that they had been misled by their former spouses as to the true extent of their wealth when their divorce claims had been settled. Their cases had both been rejected by Britain’s Court of Appeal, but yesterday the Supreme Court backed the women, a decision which lawyers said could lead to others seeking to have divorce settlements renegotiated.

“I hope that their decision sends out a message to everyone going through a divorce that they cannot lie in the family courts and get away with it,” Sharland said through her lawyer. “My legal battle has never been about money. It has always been a matter of principle.”

She had accepted a deal in 2012 from her ex-husband, Charles Sharland, the chairman and founder of IT firm AppSense, which amounted to £10 million (R205.35m) in property and cash if she agreed to accept 30% of the proceeds from any sale of his shares in his company, which he valued at between £50 million and £75 million.

However, she then learnt that he had been in discussions with investment bankers earlier in 2012 about plans to float AppSense, and an article in the Wall Street Journal suggested that the company’s worth was between £486.55 million and £648.97 million.

In her judgment, Supreme Court Judge Brenda Hale said Alison Sharland had been “deprived of a full and fair hearing of her claims” because of his “fraud”. Gohill accepted £270 000 in 2004 after divorcing her ex-husband, but later found he had hidden his true worth after he was charged with money-laundering offences.

Experts said the verdicts could have major repercussions. The cases “may open the floodgates to couples revisiting divorce agreements”. – Reuters