The application arose in circumstances where the principal asset of the estate was a 50% shareholding in a company, Z Limited, and the valuation of that shareholding would be material to the determination of the substantive claim under the 1975 Act by the deceased’s widow (AB). The other 50% was held by the deceased’s relative, who is also a director of Z Limited.
B Trustees brought its application for disclosure against Z Limited on the basis that an up-to-date valuation of Z Limited was necessary, and that without the necessary documents to enable a proper valuation the parties and estate administration would be left in limbo. Z Limited went to “very considerable” lengths to resist the application, submitting that the documents sought involved “highly sensitive and confidential information”, that disclosure would put Z Limited in breach of confidentiality obligations owed to third parties, and that there was an ulterior purpose for the valuation. Those arguments were rejected by Mr Justice Francis, who concluded that the Court could not properly determine the 1975 Act claim without the disclosure sought. He further concluded that confidentiality concerns arising from disclosure could be adequately addressed through the imposition of a rigorous privacy regime (including the redaction and anonymisation of the judgment).
The decision highlights the importance of the court’s ability to compute “the size and nature of the net estate of the deceased” (paragraph 3(e)) in claims under the 1975 Act, and in particular in order to apply the “divorce analogy”. It also demonstrates the willingness of the Court to make orders for disclosure against non-parties where such disclosure is necessary for the fair disposal of the proceedings even where this might cause the respondent to breach duties of confidentiality owed to third parties or to suffer commercial harm (at para 50): “it would be plainly wrong to allow the confidentiality issue to interrupt the court’s statutory requirement to carry out a computation enquiry and I am not prepared to allow it to do so in this case”.
Click here to read the full judgement: AB v B & Anor [2025] EWHC 1891 (Fam) (04 July 2025)
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