Winner takes it all?

In a recent Court of Appeal decision the court upheld an earlier ruling that awarded Mrs Aly all the marital assets amounting to £550,000 upon her divorce. This decision, at first glance, might seem controversial. The husband and wife are both doctors, both have incomes of their own and the starting point in any financial division upon divorce is an equal division of marital assets.

As usual the devil is in the detail. Mr Aly effectively abandoned his wife and two children to start a new life in Bahrain. He had not paid any maintenance nor provided for his children since 2011. He severed all ties with his English family leaving his wife to bring up their children and provide for them without any financial support.

To make matters worse he even failed to provide details for some of his bank accounts and his deceit was only discovered when his wife sought freezing injunctions to preserve the assets she was aware of.

In making such an all encompassing order, effectively giving his wife everything, the court had in mind the welfare of the couples’ young children whose needs took priority. In light of Mr Aly’s efforts to absolve himself of all responsibility for the family he left behind, and there being no realistic prospect of getting maintenance payments from him in the future, the Court of Appeal upheld the lower courts ruling giving everything to his ex-wife.