David Hodson on International Implications of Imerman: London: the divorce cheat's capital of the world?

London has been described as the "divorce capital of the world" including by Lord Justice Thorpe in Charman [2007] our most senior international family court judge. In part this is because of substantial redistributions of wealth based on equality principles however in part due to extensive opportunities to investigate and obtain good disclosure of the true wealth of the paying party.

Crucial has been the admission in evidence of financial documents obtained by one spouse which the other might want hidden to conceal their true wealth. English family courts have always taken a practical pragmatic view preferring the importance of gaining the truth of the finances to technical issues of confidentiality in private papers.

This dramatically changed last week with the Court of Appeal decision in Imerman. Whilst it involved extreme self-help (up to 2.5 million documents taken from the husband's computer!) the Master of the Rolls England's most senior civil judge made clear that family lawyers and family courts could no longer...

Read the full article here.