Case No. FD19F00071

144.I stated at the start of this judgment this case has been conducted as if the rules for efficient conduct have never been devised. To give only a limited number of examples: i)Until I required it at the end of the first week I was given no chronology. ii)Each party has provided their own schedule of assets. Unnecessary time has been spent trying to analyse the differences. iii)H’s statements are respectively nearer 40 and 50 pages in length regardless of the limit of 25 provided in PD 27A. iv)Most egregious of all, I gave permission for one core bundle and one library bundle per side. I have been provided with two core bundles and, unforgivably, 11 library bundles many of them containing well over 500 pages and hard to manoeuvre. They include nearly 2,000 pages of bank statements which have never even been opened in the hearing. 145.I regard the conduct of the litigation as self-indulgent. There has been no attempt, so far as I can observe, to limit the parties. At an early stage when refusing the application for a SJE accountants’ report on marital acquest, I made it clear that it seemed to me that this award was very likely to be one based on needs. This fell on stony ground. W has insisted on pursuing a sharing claim; H has sought to argue that assets which in my judgment are plainly a resource available to him are in fact controlled by his son. His insistence on sticking to the terms of the Russian court order when it plainly does not permit W’s needs to be met was unreasonable. Between the parties and their advisers, they have made what should have been a relatively straightforward judicial exercise one that has been wasteful of court time and the parties’ resources. 146.In making my comments I do not intend in any way to suggest that counsel and solicitors have done anything other than represent their clients with the utmost skill but conducting this case has been reminiscent of a visit to a museum. 147.To take this to its extreme, I was asked to resolve a dispute about six works of art, the most expensive valued at £7k. By the end of the case only 5 were in dispute. There is no doubt that H was the art collector and bearing in mind that W will be retaining the bulk of the contents of the home by both number and value I direct that H shall have the 5 pictures which remain in dispute.