The Court of Appeal has granted a wife leave to pursue an application for financial relief in England against her former husband, more than a decade after their Russian divorce.
The couple were both Russian nationals and had lived in Russia throughout their 30-year marriage. They had become ‘massively rich’ and their lifestyle was described as ‘spectacular’. They were divorced in Russia in 2014. The division of marital property by the Russian courts only included assets legally owned by one or both parties. Almost all of the wealth the husband had accumulated during the marriage was held by various trusts and companies, and the wife contended that she had received less than 1 per cent of the marital assets.
The wife moved to England and subsequently sought leave to pursue a financial claim under Part III of the Matrimonial and Family Proceedings Act 1984. The High Court, having initially granted her application, later set aside the grant of leave. The Court of Appeal allowed her appeal against that decision but the husband then successfully appealed to the Supreme Court, which remitted the wife’s appeal against the rejection of her application back to the Court of Appeal.
The Court considered the High Court’s finding that the wife’s connection with England and Wales was ‘recent and modest’ to be unfair for a number of reasons. While historically she had plainly had strong links to Russia, there was proper cause to believe that the situation had materially changed by the time her application was heard in 2019. The effect of downplaying the wife’s connection with England was that the Court had erroneously treated her claim as an attempt to achieve a top-up award through the English courts. The Court had also failed to address the argument that she had suffered an injustice by receiving such an insignificant fraction of the husband’s wealth.
By the time of her application, the wife was habitually resident in England and Wales and therefore satisfied Article 3(b) of the Maintenance Regulation. In addition, as she had been habitually resident here for at least one year preceding the date of her application, she also satisfied Section 15(1) of the Act. It was therefore not open to the High Court to dismiss the maintenance aspect of the application on jurisdictional grounds. The appeal was allowed.
The Court of Appeal considered that it was appropriate to determine the wife’s application itself. It had little difficulty in concluding that she had substantial ground for making an application for financial relief under Part III of the Act. She had made her base in England from January 2016 at the latest, there was a reasonable prospect of her remaining in this country for the foreseeable future, and there was evidence that she had very largely severed her ties with Russia. The sum awarded by the Russian courts was a tiny fraction of what she would have received if the division had included assets beneficially owned by the husband. The Court granted her leave to bring her claim and remitted her application to the High Court.