Dispute Resolution team successful with intervenor claim in divorce proceedings (1)

Fieldfisher has been successful with an intervenor claim in Central Family Court divorce proceedings for the repayment of a number of loans provided by a Russian client to his daughter and son-in-law.

Between 2006 and 2009 the client loaned (via companies he controlled) an aggregate sum of around £1.3m to his daughter and son-in-law to enable them to start and maintain a property development business in the UK.  However, on breakdown of the marriage in late 2014 the client sought repayment of these loans.  The demand was accepted by the daughter but resisted by the son-in-law on the basis that it was always intended that the money provided to them was a gift. 

Therefore, the client joined the divorce proceedings as an intervenor seeking repayment of the loans from the matrimonial assets, in particular a multimillion pound property in Fulham which has been purchased using monies loaned by the client. 

The Central Family Court found that whilst the money provided amounted to the softest of soft loans, it should nevertheless be repaid.  The Court also dismissed challenges to the validity of an assignment of part of the debt, as well as the authenticity of a number of documents relied upon by our client.  The Court ordered that the whole of the sum sought should be repaid, along with interest from the date of the original demand and a large proportion of the client's cost.

The Fieldfisher team consisted of Mikhail Basisty, Andrew Sanderson and James Hill, with the client represented in court by Chris Carr of 36 Bedford Row.  The result is all the more impressive given that the daughter and son-in-law were represented by specialist family law firms, making this a coup for the firm's Dispute Resolution department and the CIS team.