A London judge has taken the unusual step of naming the divorced couple at the heart of a bitter multi-million-pound dispute over an estate valued at around £48m.
Usually, financial settlement judgments in divorce cases remain confidential, but, in a ruling handed down on Friday, judge Mr Justice Peel decided to name the couple for a variety of reasons, including the conduct of one of the parties during the trial and the couple’s tax affairs.
They are diamond dealer Dimitry Tsvetkov and his former wife Elsina Khayrova. According to the ruling, Tsvetkov is wanted by the Putin regime in Moscow and cannot leave the UK. He also also claims to have been the target of a number of failed assassination attempts.
According to the ruling, the couple are Russian born and now also hold British and Cypriot passports. Part of the judgement concerned complications caused by the couple’s extensive portfolio of luxury properties, including a Surrey mansion, a property in Cyprus, two flats in Knightsbridge and two other London apartments.
According to the ruling, the UK portfolio is valued at around £36m and is held in the former wife’s name. According to the husband, this was to stop the properties from becoming subject to any business disputes that the husband might become involved in.
Other assets include almost £7m in jewellery, again in the possession of the wife, and a collection of at least 150 handbags worth close to £1m. In addition, there is an outstanding tax liability estimated to be as much as £20m, according to the ruling.
In his ruling, the judge said the assets should be split 50:50, as should the tax liability.
“In my judgment, the outcome I have arrived at is fair. The net effect is that each party exits the marriage with £24,259,239,” he said. That does not take into account the tax liability, which could be as much as £10m each.
The judge also found that the wife had lied a number of times during the course of the case, making the trial to take longer than necessary. As a result, he said she should pay half of her former husband’s legal fees.
At the end of the ruling, he said he had decided to name the parties.
“I am conscious that in making some comments on this topic, I am treading on ground which is not entirely solid,” he said.
While it has been the “starting point” that legal settlement judgments should be anonymised unless the judge orders otherwise, he said the law was developing.
He also said there was precedent for naming the parties if there has been litigation misconduct, where anonymisation would be effectively impossible, where material in the financial remedy proceedings is already in the public domain, and where one or both parties court publicity.
“In the case before me, in my judgment, all of these categories apply to a lesser or greater extent.”
He said the wife’s “litigation misconduct” was “of the utmost gravity”.
“It is in the public interest to be aware that one party has abused the system, and repeatedly lied, eating up valuable court time and resources in the process,” he said.
Also, other earlier judgments, including one over a dispute with a garden installation company, have been reported in the press that give details about the family.
“The fact that there have been three attempts on [the husbands’s life] in this country is, in my view, a matter of public interest,” the judge said.
In addition, the husband “gave revealing interviews to the Daily Telegraph in 2020 and the Daily Mail in March 2022 about his business dealings, Russian litigation and general wealth.”
“I also take the view that the public is entitled to know that [the husband] has not paid a penny of UK tax, nor even filed UK tax returns since his return to this country in January 2018; this is despite the parties being citizens of this country and resident here, having children who are educated here and owning multiple properties here,” the judge said.
“Finally, it is, in my view, hard to see how any attempt at anonymisation can realistically work… I therefore intend that this judgment will name the parties.”
Dmitry Tsvetkov v Elsina Khayrova
Family Court (Mr Justice Peel) 4 August 2023
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