An Irish company director who has not complied with an English court’s order to pay a £6.55 million (€7.67 million) lump sum to his ex-wife must sell valuable properties here and pay 75 per cent of the sales proceeds to her, the High Court in Dublin has ordered.
Ms Justice Nuala Jackson also directed the man to transfer valuable shareholdings and his interest in director’s loans to the woman, who has received “extremely meagre financial provision” to date and incurred “huge legal costs” in seeking to have the English orders enforced.
The judge’s orders would require sale or liquidation of a property-owning company here, which she was satisfied the man beneficially owns, with 75 per cent of net proceeds to go to the woman.
She granted a freezing order over both parties’ assets, allowing an exception for dealings to comply with the Irish court’s orders.
The judge said she aimed to achieve a “broadly equal” division of assets, having regard to the long marriage, the ages of the parties and the litigation history.
She had “no confidence” the man had disclosed the totality of his assets here or abroad.
The court was satisfied he fully owns a company that owns several properties, but there was “no clarity” about extensive unencumbered properties owned by that company that are yielding a valuable rent roll, usage of which was “entirely unvouched and unexplained”.
She was satisfied he has a 50 per cent shareholding in two other companies, is owed substantial director’s loans, beneficially owns three properties in Ireland, and that he and the woman jointly own two apartments abroad.
She said the case “amply demonstrates” the “very considerable difference” that sometimes arises between obtaining a court order and implementing it. Efforts by the English court to enforce its orders there have so far been unsuccessful, she noted.
In her judgment, delivered last month and published this week, the judge said the litigation between the man and woman has been going on for about six years, here and in the UK.
The woman’s divorce proceedings concluded in England more than four years ago, but the man’s noncompliance with English court orders led to her asking the Irish court for enforcement.
Both parties are of Irish origin. They married in England in the 1990s and mainly lived there but visited Ireland frequently and accumulated assets here, the judge noted. Their children are adults.
Despite the English court orders, the woman has received “extremely meagre financial provision” and is living in a property jointly owned with one of her children, the judge said.
The man, who represented himself before her, “profoundly” disagreed with the English court’s “clean break” orders and repeatedly expressed dissatisfaction with the woman’s failure to amicably resolve the dispute on foot of an alleged interim agreement.
No final agreement was reached between the parties, but the man appeared unwilling to move on from his view of events and his conviction that the woman’s divorce proceedings should not have been entertained, she said.
The judge had “regrettably” formed the view his perspective was not with a view to preserving the marriage but with a view to there being no intervention or interrogation of his assets and financial circumstances.
The man had failed to pay a £6.55 million lump sum to the woman by a set date in 2021 or to make alternative proposals for payment, Ms Justice Jackson said. Had payment been made, the woman was to transfer various properties to him, remove her name from their joint bank accounts and he was to get the sums in those.
The man alleged the woman and a relative of hers had waged a “vendetta” against him. She alleged a history of controlling behaviour by him and that he was a “bully” and a “narcissist”.
