Mr and Mrs Young’s divorce in the High Court in London has been an expensive exercise.  The parties’ legal costs have amounted to £6.4 million so far.  That’s not the amount of the assets they are arguing over – it’s the amount they (mainly Mrs Young) have spent on litigating their divorce.

Mrs Young was convinced that her husband was worth more than he claimed he was worth, and a large proportion of her costs went on paying investigators to establish the extent to which Mr Young was misleading her and the court.  The judge agreed that Mr Young was concealing information, found him guilty of contempt of court and sent him to prison for 6 months.

In the end though the court found that Mr Young was worth ‘only’ £40 million – far less than Mrs Young had claimed he was worth.  Mrs Young was awarded £20 million.

The case is not over.  The question of costs has yet to be decided.  The judge has told Mr Young that he will have to make a contribution to Mrs Young’s costs, but the exact amount has yet to be decided.  Some of Mrs Young’s costs were incurred in wild goose chases, trying to find assets that didn’t in fact exist.  She won’t get all her costs paid, but she’ll get some of them.  But will she able to enforce the costs order?  That may require further litigation.

And so the case goes on….