Judgment in JV v MV [2025] EWFC 234 has been published. Nicholas Yates KC and Christian Kenny, instructed by Vardags, represented the wife. It is a vanishingly rare example of the court making an order for sale of a trading business; where (to adopt the analogy used by Coleridge J in N v N) the goose that lays the golden eggs has been sent to market.
The judge accepted that the wife remaining tied to the business for an indefinite period of time (as proposed by the husband) and dependent upon the husband and his business partner was an “inherently unattractive proposition”. The husband’s proposed safeguards to protect the wife’s interests pending a sale were found to be “extensive” but “unsatisfactory”. The judgment includes helpful analysis of whether the business operated as a quasi-partnership and whether the husband’s business partner would cooperate in a sale.
The order provided for the husband to buy out the wife for a fixed sum, in default of which the shares would be placed on the market for sale and the proceeds divided equally. The only reason the judge did not order an immediate sale was due to an ongoing HMRC investigation which needed to run its course.
