Case No. BV19D16672

4.The parties met in the US. Both were working in banking (W in New York; H in London). By the time their relationship started in 2006 H was separated from his first wife and living in London and in December 2007 W relocated to England. Since that time the parties have lived and worked in London.5.For a period of some 18 – 24 months the parties cohabited in H’s former matrimonial home, he having bought out the interest of his first wife. In autumn 2009 they moved to West London and the property remained rented out, managed by professional agents. 6.W claims that because the property was their first home together and because she dealt with the paperwork of the rental the property became matrimonialised and that I should treat it as if the parties were jointly entitled to it. 7.I do not regard this as an all or nothing argument. It seems to me that the matrimonial element is genuine but small. In the scheme of the parties’ finances this is a relatively trivial issue which I resolve by finding that 30% of the value should be treated as matrimonial and 70% to be the sole property of H.8.The parties remained in rented accommodation until October 2013 when they purchased a large property in Kensington in joint names. It was bought with a substantial mortgage which was paid off during the course of the marriage and has an agreed value, net of sale costs, of just under £6m.9.Both parties worked extremely hard throughout the marriage. W has remained with the same well-known bank for many years in a variety of roles. I shall look at her career and prospects later in this judgment. 10.H likewise had spent many years working at a different bank. By 2015 he was earning approx. £2.9m gross, £1.6m net. However, in early 2016 H left his employment and with 2 colleagues set up his own business, which I shall call ABC. It was almost immediately successful and I shall return to its progress in due course.11.There can be no doubt that between 2016 - 2017 the parties were under intense stress. W was combining her work as a trader with being the primary carer (assisted by staff) of two small children and with a baby being born in February 2017. She was working long hours before she went on maternity leave.12.H too had worked very long hours but from May 2016 he had all the added pressures that went with the commencement of a new business. Not only was he having to work to get it off the ground but he was engaged in a lot of overseas travel, particularly to Asia, as ABC’s principal client was and is based in the Far East. In turn that led W to feel that she was having to bear all the domestic responsibilities.13.H’s previous employers took a dim view of his new activities. They commenced an investigation and withheld compensation. Litigation continued until settlement was reached in August 2018. This added to the pressure on the couple.14.In January 2017 one of the 3 founders of ABC ceased to be involved. From that time on H and his surviving partner have each held 50% of ABC, albeit with payments due to the departed partner. 15.In November 2017 H admitted the existence of an adulterous affair and at W’s insistence he immediately left the matrimonial home and moved into a nearby hotel.16.I have been asked to examine closely the state of the parties’ relationship between November 2017, when H moved out, and October 2018 by when it became clear that both parties had concluded that the marriage was at an end and H moved from the hotel into his own rented accommodation.17.The relevance of the argument is that H seeks to argue that the very large sum of money that the business made in its first years of operation came about as a result of his efforts post separation. This is hotly contested by W. 18.I have been referred to a significant number of email messages between the parties where each has expressed both hopes and frustrations. Having read those communications and heard the parties give evidence, a clear picture emerges. Over the course of the year between November 2017 – October 2018 the parties remained living apart and did not engage in any matrimonial relations. H was in another relationship. On the other hand, insofar as their busy schedules permitted, they spent time together, both with and without the children. They went out on occasions and shared holidays with the children. It is clear to me that they were trying to see whether they could or could not work through their differences. H wanted W to move on beyond her anger at his infidelity and show forgiveness and W wanted H to take responsibility for his behaviour and apologise. 19.I am satisfied that it was only in or around October 2018 that they both came to the conclusion that the marriage did not have a future. It is not necessary in this judgment to set out the details of their discussions. It is clear that for much of the time they were in what W accurately described as a “limbo situation”. Neither of them knew whether their marriage had a future but neither had given up on it.20.I am not impressed by H’s argument that W’s answer to the question in her divorce petition of when they separated as being November 2017 is conclusive of the point. Whilst that date marks the physical separation it was not the date of their emotional separation nor the date when, as I find, either had concluded that the marriage was at an end. I suspect that as 2018 went on H became less optimistic for the future of the marriage whilst W remained more hopeful.21.On the facts of this case, as I will explain, I do not think that this is a dispute on which anything will turn. H’s argument that the wealth his new business acquired at the end of 2017 and early 2018 was referable to a period after the end of the marital partnership does not get off the ground. In my judgment, not only was the wealth received at a time whilst the marriage was still thought to be viable, but it was the reflection of work that had been done before the parties’ physical separation in November 2017.22.In March 2018 H’s mother died and H and his sister each inherited half her estate. This included property in the Middle East. It is rightly conceded by W that this should be treated as non-matrimonial. However, in February 2019 H used $2.4m that he had received from a business transaction to purchase his sister’s share in the property and in doing so used what I find to be matrimonial money, with the consequence that half the property can properly be described as a matrimonial asset. That the property is now worth significantly less than its valuation at the time of the transaction is not a relevant factor.23.I am told by H that his mother’s accounts have been credited with excessive sums of money as a result of the payers being unaware of her death. If there is a sum to be repaid, and W disputes it, then that is not something that I am prepared to treat as a debt which I should take into account because, along with the legacy that H received following his mother’s death, it must be treated as non-matrimonial.24.Some years prior to her death H’s mother had transferred to H and his sister in equal shares a property in Menorca which had been his family holiday home. Although at one stage it appeared that W seemed to be advancing a sharing claim in respect of work that she says she carried out at that property, she has now rightly also abandoned any claim against it.25.This is not a case where the proper meeting of W’s needs cannot be met from the matrimonial assets. H will remain the sole owner of that which he has received from his mother, whether in life or death, along with his pre-marital London home, notwithstanding their matrimonial elements.26.W remains living in the former matrimonial home. The children are with her for 9 nights per fortnight and with H for 5 nights per fortnight. H seeks a more equal division. It is common ground between the parties that the home should be transferred to W. 27.H has moved to a substantial rented property near the matrimonial home. He lives there with his fiancée. He would in the long run want to buy a property but at the current time he feels the need to focus his financial resources on the business.