Jersey Court Rules That Trust Assets Cannot Necessarily Be Included In A Divorce Settlement
A court in Jersey has decided that a divorced husband or wife does not necessarily have the right to plunder their former spouse's riches if they are banked offshore. The island's Royal Court rejected an order by the High Court in London that a millionaire Indian jeweller must hand over a share of his assets, held offshore in the Channel Island in a trust previously shared with his ex-wife.
The decision means that estranged spouses could in future be blocked by their ex-partners from claiming wealth held in the crown dependencies and British territories and dependencies in the Caribbean.
Divorce law experts believe it will now encourage the wealthy increasingly to shift savings and large parts of their wealth to offshore accounts, shortly before or after they marry.
The move could also persuade other British territories and dependencies, such as some Caribbean islands and the Isle of Man, to follow suit, in an attempt to attract lucrative investment.
The Jersey ruling was made in the case of Mubarak v Mubarik, a long-running dispute over the wealth of Iqbal Mubarik, who owns the Dianoor jewellery chain, which has a shop on London's New Bond Street.
Mr. Mubarik was last year ordered by the High Court to give his wife Aaliya money from a trust in Jersey thought to be worth about £18 million. Shortly before their divorce, Mr. Mubarik removed his wife as a trustee.
However, the Jersey Royal Court found that under the trust's own rules, Mr. Mubarik was not legally entitled to pay his wife money from it - and refused to force him to do so.
