By guest blogger, Andrew Walker

A recent survey of family lawyers has revealed what we all know to be true, that individuals involved in a divorce are increasingly likely to conceal assets from their soon to be divorced husband or wife. The rationale being that what they don’t know about won’t harm them and “why should he or she have a share of my hard earned cash!”  The rise of internet banking and the global economy makes the opportunity to move assets around far easier and so more difficult to trace in a divorce.

The recent case of Tchenguiz v Imerman; Imerman v Imerman [2010] EWCA Civ 908 has made the situation much more difficult to address. This case involved a husband who shared a work office and computer system with his wife’s brothers. As the wife commenced divorce and ancillary relief proceedings against her husband, one of her brothers (possibly with others) accessed and copied information and documents of the husband’s from a server in the office, and passed them to their (the brothers’) solicitor. The solicitor had a barrister check the 11 files of documents produced by this exercise for possibly privileged material, leaving seven files of documents which were then passed to the wife’s matrimonial solicitors. They in turn disclosed the seven files to the husband’s solicitors in the ancillary relief proceedings. The court has decided that the Wife may not use any information they might have gained from reading the seven files.

The court must be able to form a view after having all relevant information available to it
Both parties have a duty to give full financial disclosure to each other and to the court. If they do not do so there can be civil and criminal consequences. A divorcing spouse should not however be deprived of a fair hearing at the expense of the other parties privacy and confidentiality. Time will tell if the decision in this case remains unchallenged in the future. However in the meantime divorcing couples must be very careful as to how they collate financial information.

Andrew Walker has been a partner and head of the family law department at Grahame Stowe Bateson for over twenty years. He is a member of the family law advanced panel and the children panel. Andrew leads a strong team of family, divorce and childcare law solicitors, offering expert advice on all aspects of matrimonial and childcare law. From their five branches throughout Yorkshire, GSB offer a range of services to their clients including free legal advice at all offices each week or initial consultations at a fixed price.