The Law
55.H brings his application pursuant to s 31F(6) of the Matrimonial and Family Proceedings Act 1984 which provides that the court may vary, suspend, rescind or revive any order which it has made and extends that power to rescind an order and relist the application in respect of which it was made.56.In essence he alleges that the 2016 consent order was made on an erroneous basis of fact and that both he and the court were misled at the November 2016 hearing because the ‘assurance’ given by W, and reflected in paragraph 8.2 of the order, amounted to material non-disclosure in that it was false and she knew it to be so. In circumstances where a court is satisfied that a party’s non-disclosure was intentional (and thus fraudulent), it is deemed to be material such that it is presumed that proper disclosure would have led to a different order unless that party can show, on the balance of probabilities, that it would not have done so: see Gohil v Gohil [2015] 2 FLR 1289 per Lord Neuberger at para 44.Strike-out57.For the purposes of the strike-out application with which I have been dealing, the relevant parts of FPR r 4.4(1) provide as follows:- 4.4
- Mrs Justice Roberts :
- AND UPON
- The 2022 litigation
- The Law
- Power to strike-out a statement of case
- Examples of cases within the rule
- The court has a full range of case management powers and considerable discretion as to how to determine an application to set aside a financial remedy order, including where appropriate the power to strike-out or summarily dispose of an application to set it aside
- These amendments now clarify the procedure for setting aside orders where no error of the court is alleged by the parties
- The “fresh evidence” and inferences to be drawn
- Submissions made on behalf of W
- Submissions made on behalf of H
- Discussion and analysis
- My conclusions
