Marco Pierre White receives an apology

The famous chef, Marco Pierre White, has received an apology from his ex-wife’s solicitors following acrimonious divorce proceedings, during the course of which they wrongly advised the wife to intercept his post.

Divorce proceedings commenced in 2007.  White’s Spanish-born wife, Mati, was advised to intercept and seize her husband’s personal post in an attempt to obtain information regarding his assets estimated to be worth £50 million. 

White therefore sued the wife’s solicitors, Withers, for what he described as their use of “dirty tricks”. 

After three years of costly litigation, the two sides reached an out of court settlement, including the apology.  In its apology, Withers said it had been applying the law “as we reasonably understood it to be at the time”.

At the time divorce proceedings were commenced it was sometimes possible to use evidence or documentation obtained in relation to the finances of the other party.  Provided that those documents were photocopied and the originals returned to the party from whom they belonged, the court would not usually penalise the party that had obtained the evidence and that evidence could be used in the course of divorce proceedings.  However, the recent landmark Court of Appeal decision of Imerman clearly confirms that a party can no longer copy or take documentation which belongs to the other and use this in the course of divorce proceedings. 

As a family lawyer the clear message to clients is that they must provide full and frank financial disclosure in relation to their income and assets as part of the divorce process.  Whilst issues do arise in relation to the other party trying to hide assets or failing to provide full disclosure, clients should take advantage of the court’s powers to seize, freeze, preserve, and to make other similar orders, to ensure that assets are not wrongly concealed or dissipated, and that evidence is not wrongly destroyed or concealed.  A client who adopts a “self help” approach will not find the support of the court. 

For more information contact Lisa Kemp

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