In an interesting decision on financial settlements in divorce proeedings the Supreme Court  dismissed an appeal over the ownership of £80m held by a divorcing couple, finding the sharing principle does not apply to non-matrimonial property.

This case involved a wealthy couple who divorced and what could be considered as shared matrimonial property. 

Clive Standish argued the £77.8m which he transferred in 2017 to Anna Standish as part of a tax planning scheme were his non-matrimonial property. The couple’s marriage ended in 2020. In financial  remedy proceedings, the judge found assets were matrimonial property and divided them 60/40 in the husband’s favour. Anna Standish was awarded £45m. 

The Court of Appeal subsequently ruled that at least 75% of the 2017 assets were not matrimonial and reduced the wife’s award to £25m. Anna Standish appealed to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court agreed In lead judgment today, Lord Burrows and Lord Stephens, with whom Lord Reed, Lord Lloyd Jones, and Lady Simler agreed, saying that ‘the problem for the wife is that there is nothing to show that, over time, the parties were treating the 2017 assets as shared between them’. 

The transfer was in pursuance of a scheme to negate inheritance tax and it was for the benefit exclusively of the children.’ There was ‘no matrimonialisation’ of the assets because ‘the transfer was to save tax’ and ‘it was for the benefit of the children not the wife’. The money transferred in 2017 was ‘not being treated by the husband and wife for any period of time as an asset that was shared between them’.