Case No. BV20D0029

43.Despite the very handsome provision made by H’s father over the years, that has now ceased entirely since these divorce proceedings. H has been, I find, marginalised by his father from his wealth management role in the family office, where he used to work full-time but now goes only once or twice a week.44.Separately, but linked, H’s father has taken steps in relation to a dynastic trust to remove from H the possibility of benefiting from €23m of dynastic money:i)On 3 June 2014 H’s father settled a trust known as the X Trust, governed by Guernsey law:a)H’s father was the settlor and is the protector. b)H’s father is the named principal beneficiary.c)H is one of the discretionary beneficiaries.d)It is fully discretionary.ii)H has received no distributions or loans from the trust.iii)On or about 21 January 2019, before the separation, H’s father transferred 170,300 shares in a company known as Company 1, which in turn owns about 30% of the shareholding in Company 2, into the trust pursuant to a trust resolution dated 6 September 2018. The value of the introduced shares was about €23m. iv)In January 2020 W’s petition was served. v)On 21 February 2020 the shares were transferred out of the trust and back to H’s father pursuant to an instrument of partial revocation executed by him as settlor. vi)I assume that the original intention was to place monies in the trust by way of potential advance inheritance. The monies never became H’s, and it was never suggested that the monies would have been distributed during H’s father’s lifetime; rather, they were intended to pass down on death. H, I accept, was not party to the discussions at the time, but simply made aware of the transactions after they had taken place. Everything was done by, and at the behest of H’s father who is clearly a domineering and controlling character, and ignored H.vii)By an instrument of amendment, clearly instigated by H’s father, dated 24 April 2020, the trust terms were amended irrevocably to ensure that no monies may be paid or lent to anybody who is not an “eligible beneficiary”. At the risk of speculating, it seems likely that this was designed to prevent trust monies being used for the benefit of W. viii)Currently the trust has assets of no more than about £1,000.45.I am confident (and nobody disputes) that these events (the annual payments ceasing, and the reversal of the funding of the trust) were principally caused by the divorce proceedings brought by W. Contrary to W’s case, this was instigated by H’s father, and is not the product of collusion between H and his father. 46.There is an additional factor which H says makes the prospect of monies once more being gifted to him by his father much less certain. His father has formed a relationship with a woman who is 38 years younger, to whom he has given about £8m. H says that he and his sisters are now barely on speaking terms with his father, and told me about a very difficult conversation between them all in January this year when they told their father they were contemplating taking proceedings against their father and his partner. They had also commissioned a Private Investigator report which angered their father. H and his siblings believe that their father is incapacitous when with his partner, manipulated and controlled by her. They believe that he might jeopardise the family wealth and their future inheritances. Since that conversation, they have now instituted legal proceedings in France and Switzerland; the claim against their father is akin to a Court of Protection action. Having heard the evidence, I accept that there is a major family breakdown underway between H, his sisters and his father. H’s father has ceased any support for H’s sisters as well as for H. H told me, and I accept, that his father sees them as the enemy. 47.Given the current disputes within the family, I do not find that in the foreseeable future H’s father is likely to resurrect the previous level of payments. The ongoing Swiss litigation suggests to me that any such payments are some way off, and, if made, could well be at a lower level than before. I doubt whether H’s father will, as W suggests, immediately replace in the dynastic trust the sums previously removed, or anything like it. I am not satisfied that I can or should take this prospective resource (i.e ongoing support provided by H’s father) into account in any meaningful way, save that I doubt he would want to see his son destitute; in other words, I view the father, in the background, as a safety net in the event of calamity rather than in the foreground as a foreseeable ongoing resource. I remind myself that this is entirely in the gift of H’s father. It is not for me to try and encourage him to restore the inter vivos payments; to do so would be to trespass on his autonomy. I make it clear, however, that even had I concluded that monies of up to c£600,000pa will shortly be made over to H once again, my conclusions on the appropriate order would be the same.