The Supreme Court upheld the main financial provisions made for a wife following divorce proceedings, including a €450,000 lump sum, transfer of the family home and annual maintenance of €40,000. It changed the costs order for the first trial, ruling that each party should bear their own costs of that hearing.
The husband had appealed the High Court’s financial orders and its award of costs for both trials. The case had been retried after the Supreme Court overturned the original High Court decision. In the appeal now before it, the court left the retrial’s financial provisions in place and made no order as to the costs of the first, aborted trial.
The judgment said the wife had given evidence that she intended to use all or a substantial part of the lump sum to buy a home in Dublin. The Supreme Court accepted that expressing the award in euros was a proper exercise of the trial judge’s discretion because the money was intended to be spent in Ireland. It also upheld the €40,000 annual maintenance figure and rejected the husband’s arguments that currency movements and the effect of a pension adjustment should reduce the amount.
The High Court had also ordered the husband to transfer the entire beneficial ownership of the family home to the wife. The husband was to pay maintenance, with his Irish pension benefits directed in part discharge of those payments. The Supreme Court affirmed those provisions.
The costs issue arose because the High Court had awarded the wife the costs of both trials. The husband estimated the costs of the first trial at about €880,000, but the wife disputed that figure and the costs had not been formally assessed. The Supreme Court said the husband must bear the costs of the retrial, but that family law cases require the court to consider how costs affect the assets available to make provision for both spouses.
The court said neither party was to blame for the outcome of the first trial. The husband had successfully appealed that decision and obtained a retrial, so it would be unfair for him to pay both sides’ costs of the first trial from the assets remaining after provision for the wife. It therefore varied the High Court order only in respect of those costs.