HJB v WPB (financial remedies)(separation agreement - application to show cause)

Facts

The husband, aged 46, and the wife, aged 43, married on 16 August 2008 after two years' cohabitation and have two sons. They separated in September 2016 at the wife's request. After negotiations lasting a year, they entered into a separation agreement on 25 September 2019 under which the wife retained the family home while the husband retained his business and non-matrimonial properties, and the husband paid £15,000 and child maintenance. The agreement recorded that both had been advised by their solicitors to give full disclosure but were satisfied they had sufficient information to proceed without a disclosure exercise. The husband's divorce petition was issued on 10 September 2022, and solicitors were instructed to convert the agreement into a consent order, but negotiations stalled. By June 2023 they had broken down entirely, the wife asserting that the terms were unfair and based on inaccurate information after learning that the husband's business was worth substantially more than she had understood. The conditional order was made on 17 July 2023 and made final on 29 August 2023. On 4 September 2023 the husband applied for financial remedies and issued a notice to show cause why the parties should not be held to the agreement. The Forms E exchanged in January 2024 disclosed a April 2022 valuation of the husband's business at around £25 million, and the wife's ownership since 2013 of a property gifted by her parents. At a first appointment on 29 January 2024 the judge directed a preliminary issue hearing.