Case No. EWFC-136

24.I have a long and detailed Assets Schedule that shows the areas in which the parties disagree. There are many such disagreements but the vast majority relate to the Husband having reduced the value of his assets for future contingencies. I do not propose to rule on such disputes at this stage although I have formed an extremely clear view as to them. The Wife’s overall figure for the assets is £28,070,377, of which she has £4,365,884 and the Husband £23,704,493. She accepts that this includes some non-matrimonial assets, the vast majority of which are interests in property in France gifted/inherited to each of the parties from their respective families. She calculates these assets as being £219,298 in her case, namely a share in a property in Brittany, Northern France, occupied by her parents, and £1,556,411 for the Husband, which consists of five separate interests in French property. 25.The Husband’s figure for the assets is £21,952,336. Of this, he asserts that the Wife’s assets have a value of £4,656,336 and his assets are £17,291,687. Of these figures, he agrees the Wife’s figure for non-matrimonial assets but contends that his own have a value of £2,381,698. There is no dispute as to the value to attribute to the five property interests. There is a sum of money in a Julius Baer account that he has inherited from his father in the amount of €646,828 and some money that he claims he has been paid by way of bonus and compensation allowance since the breakdown of the marriage, totalling £825,288. 26.The parties divide the assets up between liquid and illiquid assets. The only illiquid assets held by the Wife are two pensions with Aviva and C Group with a total value of £255,796. The Husband, on the other hand, has significant assets that are described as illiquid. These fall into three categories, namely unvested shares with B Bank; long-term investments with OCap, NCap and CCap; and his pensions. The Wife puts the value of the unvested shares, less tax on realisation, and the long-term investments, at £2,985,686. The Husband does not include any value for the unvested shares on the basis that they have no value until they vest and he might lose them in their entirety if he left B Bank and set up in competition to the Bank. If they are to be included, he argues they should be discounted for time and risk. In the same way, he discounts the long-term investments very significantly from the Wife’s figure of £1,708,515 to £419,148. Moreover, he also puts down future capital calls on these investments as a hard liability in the sum of £679,141. The total absurdity of this position can be shown by the very recent investment in NCap. He recently invested $150,000 (or £133,929), which he discounts to £20,020 for concepts such as illiquidity and the time value of money. He then deducts a further £401,786 for the future capital calls. It follows that, according to him, this recent investment has no value at all but should be included in the schedule at a negative figure of £381,766. To take this to its logical conclusion, if that asset was to be awarded to the Wife, on his case, he would have to transfer the value of it to her and pay her a further sum of £401,786 for the future cash calls. Such a presentation is completely absurd and does him no credit whatsoever. Moreover, it is all completely irrelevant if his primary case as to the Marriage Contract is correct. Finally, it is agreed that his pensions have a total CEV of £3,284,021.