The Supreme Court has largely upheld a £5 million lump-sum provision for a wife following the breakdown of a marriage in which her husband accumulated substantial wealth through his legal practice and property investment.
The anonymised couple married on March 29, 1980 and were granted a decree of divorce by the High Court on December 6, 2001. They had three dependent children. The husband was a solicitor and the wife a medical doctor.
The High Court ordered the husband to pay his wife £5 million by instalments over three years. It also awarded her 55% of benefits accrued under specified life insurance policies and provided that neither spouse could later seek provision from the other's estate under section 18(10) of the Family Law (Divorce) Act 1996.
The husband appealed the financial arrangements. Mr Justice Murray agreed that the appeal should be dismissed to the extent specified in the Chief Justice's proposed order, although this judgment does not set out the precise limited modification involved.
The court recorded that the husband's net assets for the purposes of the divorce were approximately £14 million, while the wife's assets were around £1 million. Much of his wealth had accumulated after the couple separated in 1994, including through the purchase of an office block.
Murray J held that post-separation wealth could properly be taken into account. He said the transaction had been facilitated by resources generated through the husband's successful solicitors' practice, which the wife had helped establish in its early years.
She had worked unpaid in the practice, helped furnish and clean offices and later restricted her own medical career to accommodate family and childcare responsibilities.
The judgment stressed that divorce law does not require an automatic division of assets. Instead, courts must make proper provision having regard to all circumstances. In an ample-resources case, that can include a substantial lump sum giving a financially dependent spouse greater independence, security and control over her own affairs.