Non-disclosure of assets

Kingdon v Kingdon [2010] EWCA Civ 1251;TLR 18 November

Where an order for ancillary relief on divorce was vitiated by non-disclosure, whether it was necessary to conduct the exercise of assessing the entire award again depended on the nature of the defect generated by the non-disclosure. Where the exercise had already been done and an order made in circumstances in which the non-disclosure required only the payment of an additional sum, it was appropriate to make an order for that additional amount without reconsidering the whole award. Accordingly, after the discovery of the non-disclosure by the husband of £1,268,000 profit on the sale of shares, the judge had been entitled to add an additional sum of £481,000 to the ancillary relief awarded. There could be cases of non-disclosure, for example where an applicant had secured a needs-based award without disclosure of a substantial asset or of an engagement to marry, in which the proper course was to conduct the exercise under s25 of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973, of assessing the amount of the award, all over again on updated material. The same might apply to non-disclosure by a respondent which was so far-reaching as to have led the court to survey the entire financial landscape on a false basis. However, that exercise did not always have to be conducted again. In the present case, there was nothing wrong with the original order save that it required an addition. The judge was therefore entitled to repair the defect by enlargement of the lump sum provision. He had of course to be satisfied before adopting that course that the husband could reasonably make the extra payment. In that respect the judge was entitled to take a broad and robust approach.