The financial anatomy of an ultra-high net worth divorce has never been easy to read. Wealth spread across multiple jurisdictions, layered into trusts, business structures and investment vehicles, can make full disclosure feel less like a legal obligation and more like an excavation. Yet recent court decisions have made one thing unmistakably clear: complexity is not a defence, and the courts are increasingly willing to dig.
What the Courts Are Finding in Ultra-High Net Worth Divorce Cases
The case of MK v SK, decided by Mr Justice Peel, offers a vivid illustration. The wife alleged that her husband had failed to disclose assets forming part of a trust structure, and the court agreed. It found that the husband had concealed wealth, concluding that he enjoyed access to undisclosed assets held either in a trust, some other structure, or by individuals on his behalf.
Detail from the Financial Remedies Journal adds texture to the structure at the heart of the dispute: the husband’s shareholding in the Group was held via Holdings Ltd, and the shares in Holdings Ltd had been placed in the first A Trust. The arrangement is a reminder of how many steps can sit between a person and their paper ownership of wealth, and why the courts now look beyond formal legal title to the practical reality of a party’s access to resources.
For family offices, trustees and advisers operating in this space, the judgment reinforces a familiar but pressing message. Informal arrangements carry risk. Clear governance, robust documentation and early thinking about future disclosure requirements are not optional extras; they are structural necessities.
Prenuptial Agreements and the Disclosure Trap
If MK v SK concerns the mechanics of concealment, Helliwell v Entwistle, decided last year, concerns something arguably more instructive: disclosure that a party actively asserted was complete, and was not. The parties had entered into a prenuptial agreement before a short, three-year marriage, each stating they had fully and frankly disclosed their financial resources and liabilities. The wife had not. She had failed to disclose assets amounting to 73% of her wealth, including business assets and a 50% interest in property.
The Court of Appeal found that the failure was deliberate, and sent the case back to the High Court to assess the husband’s needs. The implications ripple well beyond that one marriage. The judgment confirms that non-disclosure is not a gendered issue, and that the duty to disclose accurately applies just as forcefully when asserting completeness in a prenuptial agreement as it does in formal divorce proceedings.
The problem is structural as well as behavioural. Prenuptial financial disclosure is typically provided in a schedule or summary document, a format that can be misleading in its apparent completeness. When that summary falls short and is accompanied by an assertion that it represents the full picture, the protective value of the entire agreement is placed in jeopardy. With pre and postnuptial agreements becoming more common, the costs of getting disclosure wrong before the marriage even begins are likely to surface again in future cases.
The Long Shadow of Gohill and Sharland
These recent cases build on ground broken around a decade ago. In Gohill in 2015, Mrs Gohill persuaded the Supreme Court to set aside a settlement order made 11 years earlier, after evidence emerged of her former husband’s concealed wealth and money-laundering activity. Mr Gohill had been sentenced to 10 years in prison. The family court’s conclusion was unambiguous: settlements tainted by material non-disclosure can be reopened many years after they were believed to be final.
The resolution of Mrs Gohill’s own financial claims did not come until May 2025, some 20 years after the separation, when the court was finally in a position to determine which assets were matrimonial property and untainted by her former husband’s criminal conduct. She received the entirety of the identified untainted assets.
At the same time, in Sharland, the Supreme Court reinforced the same principle. Mr Sharland, described in proceedings as a successful software entrepreneur, had misrepresented the value of his shareholding in his software business. That it was difficult to determine precisely how the non-disclosure had affected the outcome was no barrier to overturning the original order. The court was explicit: a dishonest spouse cannot benefit from the uncertainty their own conduct creates.
The Challenge for the Financially Weaker Spouse
For the less financially powerful spouse in an ultra-high net worth divorce, the landscape is harder to navigate. Most are not forensic accountants. Even commercially sophisticated individuals may lack the visibility into complex family wealth structures to evaluate what they are being shown. In many longer marriages, financial expertise becomes concentrated in one spouse’s hands almost by default.
Allegations of non-disclosure often surface at the very start of proceedings, before any evidence exists to support them. The role of the adviser in those early stages is not simply to review what has been produced. Early, rigorous scrutiny is required: challenging, probing and identifying what may be absent from the picture.
The courts have shown, repeatedly and across many years, that they will look past structure and formality to the substance of a party’s financial position. For those navigating these waters, Hughes Fowler Carruthers advises that the duty of disclosure applies however and wherever assets are held. The message has not changed; only the complexity of the structures the courts are prepared to examine.