LE v EL (Costs)

Facts

The parties, referred to as LE ("the wife") and EL ("the husband"), were engaged in financial remedy proceedings in the Family Court at Birmingham arising out of their marriage, the wife having applied for financial relief under the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973. The assets in issue included business interests, a family home and the husband's SIPP, and the case turned principally on whether the businesses should be sold with an equal division of the proceeds, as the wife proposed, or whether she should receive a cash sum by way of lump sums payable by instalments, as the husband proposed. A series of open offers was exchanged between October 2023 and August 2024, and the parties attended a private FDR on 29 and 30 November 2023. Expert accountancy evidence was given by Mr Dodge and, with the court's permission, by Mr Bell on the husband's behalf. His Honour Judge Rowland delivered an oral judgment at the conclusion of the final hearing on 20 September 2024, ordering a sale of the businesses and an equal division of the proceeds, and describing the parties' combined costs of some £1.3M as an appalling waste of resources. The parties were given time to make consequential applications, and on 23 September 2024 both filed submissions on costs. This supplemental judgment determines the wife's application for a costs order against the husband.