Two ex-wives, who claimed to have been deceived about the true extent of their husbands wealth, have appeared before the Supreme Court this week and demanded bigger divorce settlements.
Alison Sharland and Varsha Gohil appeared in front of seven court justices as they strove to win the legal battle against their husbands deliberately fooling them during the original hearings.
Sharland, 48, is battling her £10.3 million deal, accepted before she discovered that her husband’s company was valued at nearly a billion US dollars (£620 million).
Gohil, 50, accepted £270,000 and a car in 2004, six years before her ex-husband, London solicitor Bhadresh Gohil, was jailed for money laundering after a court heard he reportedly helped a Nigerian politician steal £50 million from the oil-rich region he governed.
For both cases the lower courts stated the men in question were dishonest, but did not require them to pay any additional money to compensate.
Lawyers believe the final decision could potentially have a significant impact for people in similar situations as well as introduce more divorce settlement challenges.
Ros Bever, a divorce lawyer at Irwin Mitchell who was representing the two women said: “Both cases raise serious issues about how the courts should handle situations where information shared with the court and used to agree a divorce settlement is later found to be false or incomplete.
“We believe the position that both women find themselves in is unfair and that is why we are taking their cases to the Supreme Court.”