(Family Division, Sir Peter Singer, 28 August 2015)
The scandalous and outrageous conduct of the husband justified a costs order of £334,263 against him in relation to the wife's costs in financial proceedings between them.
This was a very complicated case because it involved a claim from a wife on
substantial and varied assets (themselves situated in several foreign
jurisdictions) which were proved to have not belonged to the husband, but to a
trust set up long before the marriage. During the course of the last 18 months
it was systematically successfully proved during multiple hearings that none of
the assets the wife was seeking to claim actually belonged to the husband and
those that he did have were already encumbered. As a result the court
was unable to transfer them to the wife and the learned judge has in fact
awarded no capital whatsoever to the wife in this case.
Clive Joy-Morancho's lawyer,
Sofia Moussaoui, partner at DWFM Beckman, said:
'I believe this to be a unique decision in British family law. I do not
know of any other case to date where a wife who was claiming many millions of
pounds was givennothing because the husband has been able to
show that he does not have any assets available to him despite the tens of
millions being attributed to him.
I am extremely pleased with the main thrust of the judgement which
demonstrates that it is possible to refute what now seems to have become the
presumption in high-net-worth family cases that a husband who claims that certain assets do not belong to him
and are not available to him and the court for division, must be making a false
presentation.'
Neutral Citation Number: [2015] EWHC 2507 (Fam)
Case No: FD11D03744
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
FAMILY DIVISION
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London WC2A 2LL
Date: 28 August 2015
Before :
Sir Peter Singer
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Between :
Nichola Anne Joy
Applicant
- and -
Clive Douglas Christopher Joy-Morancho
First Respondent
- and -
Nautilus Fiduciary (Asia) Ltd
(the trustee of the New HuertoTrust)
Third Respondent
- and -
LCAL Anthology Inc
Fourth Respondent
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Mr Richard Bates (instructed by Sears Tooth Solicitors) for the Petitioner Wife
Mr Martin Pointer QC and Mr Nicholas Wilkinson (instructed by DWFM Beckman) for the First Respondent Husband
No representative appeared for either the Third or the Fourth Respondent
Hearing dates: 27 to 31 October, 3 to 7 November, 2 and 3 December 2014, 17 and 18 June 2015
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Judgment
Joy v Joy-Morancho [2015] EWHC 2507 (Fam)
