The Court of Appeal, in the case of N v N [2014] EWCA Civ 314, considered the circumstances in which an order for financial provision on divorce may be set aside on the grounds of material non-disclosure.
Michael Glaser and Phillip Blatchly represented the appellant husband and were successful in challenging the decision of the court below that there had been material non-disclosure and, on that basis, setting aside an order for periodical payments to be made by the husband to the wife.
The Court of Appeal unanimously allowed the appeal and re-instated the original order for periodical payments made in 2009.
The appeal considers important points such as whether there is an ongoing duty of full and frank disclosure once the appeal process is underway. Although not strictly falling for determination in the context of this appeal, as the alleged breach of the duty occurred in the proceedings at first instance, McFarlane LJ’s preliminary view is that this would be unnecessarily burdensome and a potential source of unwarranted satellite litigation to establish a formal requirement that the parties should keep all of their previous financial disclosure up-to-date in the lead up to an appeal hearing and before the appellate court has determined whether there has been any material error in the first instance decision.