Case No. EWFC-38

MR JUSTICE COHEN: 1C is now aged ten years old. I shall refer to him as C. His mother is CD, who I shall refer to as „the mother‟ or when dealing with money matters „the wife‟, and his father is AB, who I shall refer to as either „the father‟ or „the husband‟ as is appropriate. C‟s father, AB, is not his biological father. That was only discovered in late 2018. The person who is C‟s biological father plays no part whatsoever in C‟s life and to his credit the father has treated C in exactly the same way as he did before the information came to light in December 2018, namely as if he was, and is, C‟s one and only father. 2The issue before me is whether in the circumstances that arise I can safely permit C to travel abroad with his father. His father wants to be able to take him all over the world. The mother wants contact to be restricted to England and Wales until such time as the father has paid or put on deposit the lump sum which I ordered him to pay. She fears that if I let the father take C abroad he will hold C as leverage to negotiate a lower financial settlement than that which I ordered him to pay. 3The brief background is that both parents come from enormously wealthy international Indian families. The parents were based in London during the marriage. For the latter part of the marriage C lived with his parents in a large house in London, almost next door to the houses where respectively his paternal grandparents live and his paternal uncle lives. C goes to school in London at a well-known private day school. 4Following the separation of his parents in spring 2017, C has lived with his mother in the matrimonial home. He has enjoyed frequent contact with his father which until the end of 2018 has included holidays in family homes of the parties in the south of France and a skiing chalet in Switzerland and elsewhere. The standard of living has been quite extraordinarily high. 5To expand somewhat on the contact, following the breakdown of the marriage the father had staying contact with C without the mother in 2017 in Dubai, France and Mauritius and in 2018 in Dubai, France, India and on a yacht in the Mediterranean. C was due to go with his father to Dubai in early 2019, but at the end of the previous year the news of C‟s paternity was revealed and the father did not feel ready to take C away immediately. But in February 2019 C did go with the father for a week or so skiing in Switzerland. That was the last time that C has been abroad with his father. 6The father was deeply wounded by the discovery that he was not C‟s biological father. He unleashed a torrent of litigation against the mother in all three divisions of the High Court. In January and February 2020, I heard over a period of three weeks the wife‟s application for financial remedy orders. I found in those proceedings that the husband had been untruthful in his disclosure and had sought to minimise his assets in a blatant way. I also found him to be resentful and bitter about the wife‟s infidelity. It is right to record that the father does not accept my criticisms of his disclosure. 7I ordered him to pay £64 million, comprising the redemption of the mortgage on the matrimonial home and its transfer to the wife (£15 million) and a lump sum of £49 million payable in two tranches. One year later he has paid nothing. He sought permission to appeal my order and was refused permission. The first tranche of £30 million and the transfer of the property mortgage-free was due to take place by the end of September 2020. Just a day or two before that date, he issued an application to vary or set aside the order on the basis of a change in his circumstances as a result of the pandemic. I dismissed the application, and he is seeking permission to appeal.