Alona Sloutsker v Vladimir Sloutsker & Ors [2025] EWFC 369

IMPORTANT NOTICE This judgment was delivered in private. The judge has given leave for this version of the judgment to be published on condition that (irrespective of what is contained in the judgment) in any published version of the judgment the anonymity of the minor children must be strictly preserved. All persons, including representatives of the media, must ensure that this condition is strictly complied with. Failure to do so will be a contempt of court.This Transcript is Crown Copyright. It may not be reproduced in whole or in part other than in accordance with relevant licence or with the express consent of the Authority. All rights are reserved.

[2025] EWFC 369

Case No 1727-9638-8084-0219

IN THE FAMILY COURT

Venue SITTING AT THE ROYAL COURTS OF JUSTICE, Royal Courts of Justice

Date 14 th August 2025

Strand

London

WC2A 2LL

Before

THE HONOURABLE MR JUSTICE GARRIDO

Between

MRS ALONA SLOUTSKERApplicant

(1) MR VLADIMIR SLOUTSKERRespondents

(2) ROOSEVELT & PARTNERS (NZ) LTDRespondent

(3) THE TRUSTEES OF THE MAGNOLIA TRUSTRespondent

(4) NEW ZEALAND CORPORATE HOLDINGS LTDRespondent

Approved Judgment

Transcription by Marten Walsh Cherer Ltd.,

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ALEXIS CAMPBELL KC and HELEN WILLIAMS (and JOE SWITALSKI for judgment)(instructed by Family Law in Partnership Ltd) appeared for the Applicant Wife

THE FIRST RESPONDENT HUSBAND represented himself

THE THIRD RESPONDENT appeared in person as TOBIAS FABER for in person

[1]This is Alona Sloutsker’s application for a financial order issued in the usual Form A on 27 September 2024. The applicant has been represented before me by Alexis Campbell KC and Helen Williams, instructed by David Allison of Family Law in Partnership and his team.

[2]The first respondent is Vladimir Sloutsker. He was originally represented by another well-known specialist firm of family solicitors, Stewarts, from October 2024, when I was invited to make a freezing order, until about February of this year, but since then he has been acting in person. His reasoning for doing that seems to be linked to his declaration of poverty before this court and his consequent professed inability to fund legal representation. Unsurprisingly, there is some suspicion, at least on behalf of the applicant, that it is simply a tactical diversion. It is also extremely unfortunate that he has chosen to take this route because of his illness, something that I will return to later in this judgment.

[3]The third respondent, skipping the second respondent for the moment, is Tobias Faber. He is the personal trustee of the first respondent’s family trust, the Magnolia Tree Trust. He has also chosen to represent himself. The second and fourth respondents are described (rightly or wrongly) as essentially holding companies named as Roosevelt & Partners (New Zealand) Limited and New Zealand Corporate Holdings Limited. Mr Faber, I understand, is a director of Roosevelt. New Zealand Corporate Holdings holds shares in Roosevelt as a nominee for Mr Faber as trustee of the trust. Neither of these respondents has played any active part in the proceedings but in reality have been represented through Mr Faber as a director of Roosevelt and a trustee of New Zealand Corporate Holdings Limited.

[4]This has been the final hearing of the application that was listed to commence on Monday 21 July 2025 and to conclude on Tuesday 29 July 2025. It was anticipated that there would be time at the beginning of case for judicial reading, three days or so for evidence, a day for submissions and a couple of days at the end of the case for the consideration, preparation and hand-down of judgment. For various reasons, partly the court’s availability, partly the special measures instituted to enable Mr Sloutsker’s participation in proceedings, closing submissions did not conclude until 29 July and therefore there was no time as anticipated for the preparation and then delivery of judgment.

[5]Since that time the final two days of term were fully listed before me and on 1 August I started my duties as one of the vacation judges, and there simply has not been time to prepare a full written judgment as one might expect at the conclusion of a case such as this. I am however conscious of the importance of producing a decision for these parties at the earliest opportunity, not least because of the respondent’s ill-health, so I have listed this afternoon for the oral delivery of an extempore judgment. In due course, a transcript will be provided, following which the parties will be at liberty to seek further clarification, if they so wish, and if that invitation is accepted by me when the transcript is approved, such further reasoning as is thought to be necessary can be provided. Meantime, on the basis of the judgment that I give this afternoon, I shall approve an order which will be sealed forthwith and capable of implementation.

[6]I have already alluded to Mr Sloutsker’s health. He is unwell. He has stage four renal cell carcinoma. I have already concluded at an earlier stage in proceedings that there is little doubt as to the seriousness of his health condition and the potential for it to result in a premature conclusion to his life. Nor does the applicant take any issue with the seriousness of the respondent’s health condition.

[7]It was because of his ill-health that he was asked to refer to his treating consultant for an opinion of any special measures that I might put in place to assist him and reduce the stress and strain of his participation in the trial, which I brought forward from a date next term so as to accommodate the early resolution of these proceedings.

[8]Unfortunately, Mr Sloutsker was not willing to participate in the invitations to his consultant here in London to propose special measures. It was only, I think, early in July that he eventually approved a letter that was sent to his consultant, but there has never been any reply. There was a letter from a nurse filed by Mr Sloutsker shortly before the start of the final hearing when he sought an adjournment of the case but that letter went nowhere near justifying an adjournment of the final hearing and unfortunately did not really set out the sort of special measures I had hoped a medical professional could assist the court with.

[9]Nevertheless, I proceeded with the hearing. We did not sit for full days. I permitted Mr Sloutsker to remain at home and participate in the case remotely. We took frequent breaks every hour or so. We often did not sit in the afternoon because that was a time when Mr Sloutsker was frequently tired, having spent the morning in court. I provided for him a court-appointed Russian language interpreter, to the extent that his tiredness prevented him from using his otherwise excellent command of English, to assist him give evidence and to ask questions. Whenever during the course of the seven days or so of the trial that he asked for more time or a rest or a break, he was provided with it. In addition to that, I allowed his adult son Mikhail to be present with him on the video link when he wished him to be there in order to provide him with assistance in conducting his case.

[10]I am also aware that over the years Mr Sloutsker has been involved in very many instances of litigation both in this jurisdiction and elsewhere in courts at the highest level, including here in England in the High Court. He is a practised litigant. He is familiar with legal process.

[11]Those matters taken together have given me confidence to be able to come to the judgment that these proceedings have been conducted entirely fairly and Mr Sloutsker has had every opportunity to present his case properly. He has done so at times with considerable force and eloquence. Clearly, although he cannot replicate, as a litigant in person, the skill with which his case might have been prepared and presented had he continued to instruct Stewarts and leading and junior counsel, it was, I find, his choice not to do so and he has nevertheless received a fair trial.

[12]He is not present today for judgment. In requesting the adjournment of the delivery of this judgment, he has produced no documentary evidence in support of his assertions. He tells me that he has had to go overseas for medical treatment. Two things puzzle me about that statement. Firstly, he has been at pains to say that such is his current poverty that he is unable to pay for medical treatment and, secondly, he has previously asserted that the medical treatment and the consultant supervising it is based in London. I know not, therefore, if the grounds of his application by email to my clerk are true, because they are entirely inconsistent with his previous assertions.

[13]Be that as it may, I have made arrangements for him to be able to receive, without having to wait for the transcript, an informal note of judgment taken by the applicant’s solicitors, and I am grateful to them for making that available to him in due course. I am also reassured that Mr Faber is here to listen to the judgment himself and, given his extremely close and longstanding relationship with Mr Sloutsker, will no doubt be able to inform him of the key parts of my decision this afternoon, taken together with the fact that my order will be sealed forthwith and provided to the parties before my period of vacation duty comes to an end tomorrow afternoon.

[14]In preparation for this case Mr Sloutsker has been in breach of almost every order that I have made requiring him to file evidence. His Form E that was due on 13 February this year was only filed after a penal notice was endorsed on the order. When it was filed it was clear on its face that it was wholly deficient, with very few supporting documents and many of those that were provided being in Russian and not translated into English.

[15]Mr Sloutsker breached my order to file specific disclosure relating to the trust and he failed to file replies to questionnaire which were also due in May of this year. He is in breach of an order to file documentation relating to the mortgage secured on the family home. A requirement for him to file a Section 25 statement by 27 June was also ignored. When I gave him further time to file the statement by 11 July, he still breached that order and filed a cursory document eventually on 14 July, duplicating many of the unhelpful exhibits previously provided in Russian, which were of limited assistance to me.

[16]All this litigation misconduct (as I find it to be) has meant that much of the crucial evidence upon which I have had to rely has been obtained from third parties, and that has come at significant cost to the applicant and has come very late. But nevertheless it has come and has enabled me to see with sufficient clarity the resources available to this family so as to compute the assets for division and make the order that I will today.

[17]I have had regard to a considerable amount of information and evidence that has been able to be obtained and placed in both the main court bundle and a supplemental bundle. In particular, I have had regard to a number of witness statements provided by the applicant both in support of a freezing order and in support of her application for maintenance pending suit and a legal services payment order, Mr Sloutsker’s statement opposing that latter order, the applicant’s statement for enforcement of the various interim orders, Mr Sloutsker’s statement seeking a stay of proceedings back in March of this year, the two section 25 statements, and of course the various documents produced by the parties for the final hearing.

[18]I have also been provided with expert evidence from a New Zealand lawyer. I gave Mr Sloutsker permission to file a response to that evidence if he disputed its contents. He has not done so. Mr Faber has not done so.. The other respondents have not done so. I have therefore proceeded on the basis that the expert evidence provided by the applicant is unchallenged. It confirms that if I determine in due course that the New Zealand trust needs to be varied in any way, I can be confident that the court in New Zealand will implement such an order. Whether it will be necessary for the trust to be varied is a matter to which I will return.

[19]There is no dispute between the parties that they enjoyed a very high standard of living. As an indication of the standard of living, I can do no better than refer to the summary of the lifestyle as found by Mr Warshaw KC, sitting as a Deputy High Court Judge, when considering the application for maintenance pending suit and legal services payment order. Under paragraph 16 his Lordship said this:

“The applicant describes a lifestyle consistent with extreme wealth. The family home is very grand: 2,790 square metres, nine bedrooms, a heated indoor pool, a massage room, a cinema room, a commercial chef’s kitchen, a wine cellar, a gym, a four-car garage.”

[20]At paragraph 18 of his judgment Mr Warshaw set out some of the holidays the parties had taken: a family trip to Courchevel at Christmas at a cost of just under half a million Euros, a trip to Zermatt at €70,000, a trip that the applicant made to Courchevel at €45,000, a family trip to Dubai at US $100,000, attending a wedding at US $35,000, and a summer holiday in Tuscany at €400,000.

[21]There is no doubt, even just on the basis of that information, that the parties’ standard of living was the very high standard that the applicant describes. That standard of living, it would appear, came to an abrupt end in the middle of last year. Mr Sloutsker says that was nothing to do with the applicant seeking a divorce at that time. Apparently, this severe financial hardship on which he now relies was completely unrelated but rather the result of his assets in Russia being stolen. He says that he has been unable to afford any mortgage payments since the middle of 2024 when the marriage broke down. He has allowed arrears to accumulate and the mortgage debt on the family home has now grown to some £27 or £28 million in just 12 months.

[22]The applicant’s case has been that Mr Sloutsker is a sophisticated businessman. As part of some of the third-party disclosure that was obtained as a result of the orders that I had made, Mr Sloutsker’s Mayfair accountants Blinkhorns, it would appear, had a financial biography of Mr Sloutsker’s financial circumstances and the sources of his wealth. Their letter is dated 8 March 2024 and it was sent to another company called Brydg which subsequently provided finance to maintain ownership of the family home.

[23]It is clear from that biography that for a significant period of time Mr Sloutsker was actively engaged in business in what was at one stage the USSR and subsequently became the Russian Federation, and that there is considerable detail in that document produced on Mr Sloutsker’s instructions that sets out his extensive business history, his extensive involvement in politics, both within Russia and within the wider international community, and in particular in his recent support for Israel within the commercial community. Much of that information is in the public domain but it is set out conveniently in the Blinkhorns letter and cannot in my judgment be seriously disputed by Mr Sloutsker.

[24]I have already made reference in a different context to his extensive experience of litigation and to his failure to provide full and frank disclosure. The main assets that have formed the examination of the evidence during the course of this hearing have been as follows: (1). The family home in London valued at £45 million or thereabouts, and as I said, subject to borrowing of £27 or £28 million. There is some uncertainty about the precise figure at any one time because of the increasing arrears. (2). Funds in REYL Bank in Switzerland, some £4 million. (3). A family home in Moscow valued at £22 million or thereabouts. (4). A development site in Moscow to which a figure of £150 million has been given. (5). Investments in US private equity of the order of £17 million. (6). Art of various sorts valued at around £4 million.

[25]The existence of each of those six categories of assets is largely evidenced by documents that have been generated on Mr Sloutsker’s behalf, signed and/or authorised by him, demonstrating his financial position very shortly before he was faced with the end of his marriage and start of these proceedings. The most recent and reliable of such documents is taken from the disclosure given by Brydg and it is headed “Statement of Means of Magnolia Trust and Vladimir Sloutsker: Full name: Vladimir Sloutsker; [his address at a property in London]; his occupation as a businessman; [his date of birth].”

[26]His assets are set out in that document as follows: Property: main residence £45 million, mortgage £27 million, land in Russia £150 million, US investments £17 million, cash balances £8.25 million. That is explained to be cash at REYL Bank. Then other assets of £1.35 million, said to be cars, art collection, jewellery, et cetera.

[27]The only thing missing from that list is the family home in Russia. That document is signed by Mr Sloutsker’s own hand and dated by him 17 March 2024, with an additional declaration by David Cramer, partner at Blinkhorns accountants, dated 21 March 2024 saying, “I hereby certify this to be a true copy of the original.”

[28]Mr Sloutsker has sought to resile from that description of his wealth with the unattractive evidence, or perhaps submission, that that was a document that was generated purely to obtain finance in order to maintain ownership of the family home and therefore cannot be relied upon as being an accurate representation of his wealth because it was generated for a particular purpose.

[29]Perhaps it is an understatement for me to describe that as an unattractive piece of evidence or an unattractive submission. I cannot imagine that Mr Sloutsker was intending to represent himself as somebody who would knowingly and deliberately falsify his financial position with the intention of misleading a financial institution so as to defraud them of money that they would otherwise not have lent to him were he telling the truth about his position. In my judgment, it is much more likely that the lie that he is telling is the lie to me that the schedule is unreliable, rather than the fact that he would now like me to believe that he was lying to Brydg.

[30]I am emboldened in that conclusion because I do not believe that Blinkhorns would be complicit in a conspiracy such as that to obtain funds from Brydg on a false basis. And I am further emboldened in that conclusion because very similar schedules were sent in previous years to other financial institutions, again through the good offices of Blinkhorns accountants.

[31]I have come to the judgment that those schedules, in particular the most recent one, provide a reasonably accurate indication of Mr Sloutsker’s wealth. As I say, the only asset that it seems to miss out is his family home in Moscow, where his children were raised at points in their childhood and which in litigation in this jurisdiction between Mr Sloutsker and his previous wife evidence was given and accepted of his beneficial interest in that property. I have already concluded that in this respect Mr Sloutsker has been a dishonest witness.

[32]Added to that, Mr Sloutsker said in December last year that he did not recognise such asset schedules of which the applicant was aware. He said he did not create them, he did not know who did, and he did not know when they were made or for what purpose. That was clearly a dishonest statement now that I have seen that he signed by his own hand on 17 March of last year the document to which I have referred, the Brydg re-financing document.

[33]Going beyond those asset schedules, Mr Sloutsker has failed to disclose his investments in the San Paolo Wealth Management Accounts with REYL. The accounts hold substantial funds. £5.454 million can be seen in the document being transferred from one account to the REYL personal account. Interest on dividends has been paid. There was no disclosure of those accounts, and it has not been possible for me to see what is held there. But it is apparent from the transactions in the REYL accounts that I can come to the confident conclusion of the existence of some £4 million with REYL.

[34]Further indications of Mr Sloutsker’ dishonesty come in his assertion in these proceedings that he really had no idea how art, et cetera, on the schedule was listed at £3.15 million. In fact, I now know that he had commissioned a Gurr Johns’ valuation of his art in January 2023 and that he had provided copies of that to Brydg in 2024 and that that valuation valued the art at more than £4 million. It is clear to me that Mr Sloutsker knew exactly what the figure of £3.15 million in the schedule related to.

[35]And the disclosure from Brydg has identified an email sent to Brydg by Mr Sloutsker’s adviser Stephen Sharp on 26 April 2024. Mr Sloutsker was copied into that email in which it was explained that the historic art had been valued and that more art had been acquired. That re-evaluation was the Gurr Johns’ report.

[36]Whilst I am dealing with the art, again in December 2024, Mr Sloutsker said that he was trying to sell or pledge his art, but at trial a couple of weeks ago he produced documents in which he asserted that he had gifted the art to his son more than 12 months before then, in November 2023. That gift in November 2023, if it were true, would be entirely inconsistent with the statement that Mr Sloutsker made in December 2024.

[37]I am led to the inescapable conclusion that the most likely explanation for this is that the deeds of gift must have been created not in November 2023 but after Mr Sloutsker made his statement to this court in December 2024, and were very probably generated as some form of defence to a means of enforcement deployed by the applicant when bailiffs attended at the family home in July of this year.

[38]Those deeds of gift that have been produced so late in the day were also signed by Mr Faber. Mr Sloutsker has presented his relationship with Mr Faber, or certainly he did at the beginning of these proceedings, as one of arm’s length and professionalism. He tried to suggest in October 2024 that he was not entirely clear who the trustee was, what the trust was called, and he, apparently, was not able to give the trust’s contact details.

[39]The truth outed in due course, but only after he was ordered to provide contact details in December of last year and it seems that Mr Sloutsker knew his trustee very well indeed and was on very good terms with him. Mr Faber is a family friend. He is described by Mr Sloutsker as “a fiduciary” acting on Mr Sloutsker’s instructions in a myriad of tasks and responsibilities, confirming he is dealing with his financial affairs. If they are not friends then they are clearly very close associates. And Mr Sloutsker’s attempts at the outset of these proceedings at claiming unfamiliarity with the trustee was clearly and deliberately, in my judgment, misleading and dishonest and was intended to create a distance between him and the trust and the trustee where none really existed.

[40]It is clear from the evidence that I have read and heard from Mr Sloutsker that the submission made on behalf of the applicant that he believes that if he dissects the legal title from the beneficial interest of an asset, he has removed any personal responsibility or liability in respect of the asset whilst retaining its full benefit, is correct. It is clear that he uses and had used frequently devices to try to obscure his true interest in a number of assets and in his business relations and dealings.

[41]A number of examples were brought to my attention and were revealed during the cross-examination of Mr Sloutsker. First, his acquisition of 3 The Boltons with his first wife via a holding company held in trust, where the company held the title as a nominee for the trust, was all intended to hide Mr Sloutsker’s name, whilst at the very same time he expected to retain the benefit. In those proceedings he argued that he retained a 50% interest on a resulting trust because he had jointly paid for the property despite having no legal interest.

[42]Secondly, in the course of his evidence, he admitted that he had paid for the house in Moscow, although his written evidence was that he had not owned any residential property in Moscow since 1993. It seems that because the title to the property was not registered in his name, he felt justified in saying that he did not “own” the property. Perversely, it is now his case that the property was stolen from him, but the question is asked rhetorically on behalf of the applicant: how could it be stolen from him if it did not belong to him in the first place?

[43]Another example of using these devices to obscure ownership is the three Italian hotels. They were sold by Mr Sloutsker on his direction. They had been owned by corporate structures, with Mr Faber acting as company director. Of course, this led Mr Sloutsker to deny, when answering questions, that he “owns” the hotels by relying on the existence of the corporate holding structures, despite documentary evidence that came from Mr Faber that showed that the proceeds of sale of the hotels were paid to Mr Sloutsker personally. All Mr Sloutsker was doing was hiding behind the absence of legal title to suggest that he had no beneficial interest, but the truth of the position was demonstrated by the eventual payment of the proceeds of sale.

[44]Similar evidence was given about commercial litigation in the Cayman Islands. “I was not a party,” he said. “The party was an offshore entity. I myself was not involved.” Again, in relation to business interests in Cyprus, “It is not my company,” said Mr Sloutsker, “You can check that.” Of course, he told Brydg something different and produced company certificates showing Mr Faber as a director, but of course Mr Sloutsker was able to say in evidence, “Legally it never belonged to me and I could use the company without ownership.” And this is the clearest definition of how Mr Sloutsker uses these devices and how he sees in his own mind legal and beneficial title.

[45]I accept the submission made on behalf of the applicant that he sees the former as always capable of being removed to protect him when he needs protection but that he regards beneficial title as always being retained by him so as to permit him to have full control, benefit and enjoyment of such assets.

[46]Very late in the day it was discovered that another example of this approach was the way in which Mr Sloutsker’s cars were held in a company called 55LL Limited. Mr Faber told me that that company was entirely funded by Mr Sloutsker. Mr Faber was a director of it. It was used to organise car leases for the Sloutsker family. This company was never mentioned by Mr Sloutsker but was entirely funded by him, with cars purchased for him and his family’s sole benefit. As a consequence, it seems, because he was able to divest himself of strict legal title, he felt under no obligation to give any discovery or disclosure of the company or the assets within it, and again it really only came to the applicant’s knowledge when the bailiffs were trying to enforce debt on the applicant’s behalf.

[47]I come to examine the net equity in the matrimonial home in London. The submission made on behalf the applicant is that the net equity is held on resulting trust by Mr Sloutsker. I am rightly referred to paragraph 52 of Prest v Petrodel

[2013] UKSC 4

in the following terms:

[48]Mr Sloutsker paid the profit on the sale of a hotel in Sochi, which he has described as “money coming from me”, into a limited company, which he has asserted was “his” company. He then arranged for the transfer of funds from that company into Roosevelt which then paid for the acquisition of the FMH. I have no doubt that when Mr Sloutsker arranged or facilitated both those transfers he clearly intended to retain beneficial interest in the money that was used to purchase the matrimonial home. As in other instances when he has used such a structure, he never intended to dispose of his beneficial interest and I do not consider that he did so.

[49]I am emboldened in that conclusion because there is clearly no reason for the gratuitous transfer of personal funds by Mr Sloutsker into either the company or into Roosevelt, other than to fund the acquisition of matrimonial accommodation and as an investment personally for Mr Sloutsker and for his family.

[50]As I have said, there is no doubt that he transferred funds with the intention of retaining the beneficial interest in those funds. He has failed to satisfy me, as has Mr Faber, that there was any good commercial reason for the company or the trust to acquire residential property other than to provide accommodation and investment for Mr Sloutsker personally. The transfer by Roosevelt to purchase the property in London was clearly made for Mr Sloutsker’s benefit on a resulting trust.

[51]There was a dummy beneficiary of the trust in 2016 and 2017. Mr Sloutsker’s explanation, such as it is, makes very little sense, save that it is a further demonstration of the way in which he saw the trust, namely, as I find, as a structure for him to operate at his own discretion, where a nominee could be interposed in legal title but would not interfere with his beneficial interest.

[52]He manipulates these structures, I find, whenever it suits him. So, for example, he was appointed as a discretionary beneficiary when it suited him in order to avoid, or perhaps minimise, stamp duty when the property was acquired. In the trust Mr Sloutsker’s status was varied in order to facilitate his purpose at the time. Later Mr Sloutsker was appointed again as a discretionary beneficiary having at one stage held a lifetime interest in possession, converting the trust back in a discretionary structure. In my judgment, this is the clearest indication of the way in which Mr Sloutsker and Mr Faber used the trust simply to meet Mr Sloutsker’s personal needs. It is described on behalf of the applicant as “a structure convenient to use for tax and creditors but was not there to inhibit, restrict or affect Mr Sloutsker’s full beneficial use of the funds or the properties acquired with those funds”. That is a description which, in my judgment, is entirely accurate.

[53]If further support for the existence of the resulting trust was required, further examples of Mr Sloutsker’s conduct which demonstrate his intention to retain beneficial ownership of the funds include that he signed a personal guarantee to secure lending from Credit Suisse, West One Loans, Topland and subsequently Brydg. Why would he have done that, exposing himself personally to liability, had he intended to dispose of his beneficial interest in the funds that form the equity in the matrimonial home?

[54]He paid from personal funds for renovations to the property. Somewhere between £3 million and £5 million was spent. There is no reconciliation of the funds that were provided. Although he claimed some were paid by the trust and some by him personally, he could not say what he is owed and nothing has been repaid. Why would he invest his personal funds in the property? Why would he fail to record what he invested in the property personally if he believed that he had disposed of his beneficial interests? The absence of the reconciliation was confirmed in evidence by Mr Faber, who really had no idea what had been paid towards the renovations by Mr Sloutsker personally, by Roosevelt or by the trust. Mr Faber’s evidence was, unfortunately, contradictory.

[55]What is clear from Mr Faber’s evidence, however, is that there was no account of any cash funds settled by Mr Sloutsker into the trust and that he could provide no reconciliation of what may have been paid. Further examples include that Mr Sloutsker paid the mortgage and other expenses linked to ownership of the property in a way that is, I find, clearly inconsistent for a tenant who simply occupies a property having disposed of his beneficial interest in the equity. Again, no reconciliation has been produced to show what payments Mr Sloutsker has made and that absence of record-keeping supports the fact, in my judgment, that Mr Sloutsker retains beneficial ownership in the equity.

[56]According to Mr Faber, the trust, trustee, and Roosevelt (or any combination of the three) are owed some $1.9 million by Mr Sloutsker, but again, despite numerous requests, no reconciliation has been provided and no copies of invoices said to support the liability. This is all material which is wholly within Mr Sloutsker’s or Mr Faber’s control, if it exists.

[57]I can only come to the conclusion that documents have not been produced either because they do not exist or because it suited Mr Sloutsker not to have those documents disclosed. Either way I cannot reliably come to a conclusion that that money is owed by Mr Sloutsker.

[58]I am driven to accept the submission made on behalf of the applicant that no trustee in a purely professional relationship would do what Mr Faber is averred to have done in failing to maintain any proper trust records or any form of reconciliation to show how so-called trust property was being paid for with non-trust funds, and no record of debts kept that the trust might owe to Mr Sloutsker for payment of expenses. Mr Faber’s conduct can really only be explained by Mr Sloutsker having retained the full beneficial interest in the funds which paid for the matrimonial home and therefore for the matrimonial home itself. In reality, Mr Faber acted as Mr Sloutsker’s longstanding trusted informal fiduciary generally managing his finances rather than in any professional capacity as a trustee.

[59]My conclusions about the matrimonial home being held on a resulting trust by Roosevelt and Mr Sloutsker are very clear indeed. In those circumstances I need not and do not come to any conclusions about the alternative way in which I may be able to deal with the net equity in that property.

[60]Turning to the family home in Moscow. I find Mrs. Sloutsker’s evidence about that property was clear and honest when she tells me that throughout their relationship Mr Sloutsker referred to that property as his home. Unfortunately, Mr Sloutsker has attempted to mislead the court about that property. In his first statement he tried to imply that this was some form of casual rental arrangement and not a longstanding family home that was built in 2000 with his first wife.

[61]What he said in his statement is as follows:

“Alona refers to a house in Russia where we have stayed on occasion and where I am staying now. This is a rental property, the lease for which I no longer hold. I have not owned any residential property in Russia since 1993. I am staying at the rental property in Russia as I know the ultimate owner and he is helping me out as an old friend. I do not pay rent but I am expected to pay the utility and other bills and he can ask me to leave should he find a paying tenant.”

[62]When Mr Sloutsker was, as inevitably he would have been, confronted with the judgments in Slutsker v Haron Investments Limited that made clear that he owned property in Moscow that he had retained in the first divorce, he soon changed his position and said that in fact he had recently lost his interest in that property to a Russian oligarch. Mr Sloutsker’s son Mikhail when giving evidence inadvertently referred to the “Moscow home” and, in doing so, revealed and supported the position taken by Mrs Sloutsker that there were rooms in the house established for the children in which they had lived.

[63]I accept the valuation by the applicant of the respondent’s beneficial interest in the Moscow home as about US $30 million. An alternative, perhaps more formal valuation could not be obtained because Mr Sloutsker had not disclosed the property’s address. Although he referred in his evidence, when he was attempting to suggest the property had been stolen from him, that he could obtain the property back by paying the oligarch a small profit and his expenses, and he alighted on the sum of US $30 million or thereabouts. I take that to be confirmation of the estimate provided to me on behalf of the applicant.

[64]Mr Sloutsker’s evidence as to why he had not previously mentioned the property, and the involvement of the oligarch allegedly stealing the property from him, that it was “an irrelevant, small detail” does not, in my judgment, have the ring of truth about it. Furthermore, Mr Sloutsker explained how eviction orders in respect of the property had not been produced. And he contradicted his oral statement that the unnamed oligarch had allowed him to remain in occupation rent free until the end of the year.

[65]Mr Sloutsker’s evidence about losing his beneficial interest in that property does not, in my judgment, stand up to scrutiny given the fact that I have found that his evidence in respect of that property has been both implausible and inconsistent and most likely, comparing his written evidence with his oral evidence, deliberately dishonest.

[66]As for the site in Moscow, again Mr Sloutsker’s December 2024 statement intended to deny any interest in this site and yet he commissioned from Knight Frank in 2013 and again in 2015 a valuation of property. In my judgment, he could not have done that without retaining ownership in the broadest sense, whether directly or indirectly, in the site. And he continued to describe his ownership of the site to the lenders - West One Loans, Topland, Brydg - and, as I have already stated, – it appears on the March 2024 list of assets with a value of £150 million. Although there is evidence of the original valuation of that site at £1 billion, I accept that the site (as it currently is) is essentially moth-balled leading to the lower valuation, because it is essentially illiquid, not least as a result of the Russian war and invasion in Ukraine.

[67]Again Mr Sloutsker’s evidence in respect of this land has been entirely inconsistent. He said in his December statement:

“My claims have not been dismissed entirely and there are still routes available to me to pursue them, regardless of the merits of the claim, but I consider it very unlikely indeed to be successful.”

He went on to say:

“The land is currently out of my reach.”

He went on to say:

[68]The applicant of course is right to submit that there is significance in use of the word “currently”. In his oral evidence Mr Sloutsker said:

“The thing I was looking to use were my claim rights which I am probably wishing to commercialise in the future.”

He attempted to correct himself by saying, “… hopefully wishing to go commercialise in the future”, but I find his use of the first adverb is more accurate.

[69]There is little doubt in my mind that the varied and overall false presentation which Mr Sloutsker attempted to encourage the court to adopt in respect of this land is simply intended to hide a valuable asset in which he retains the beneficial interest through various third-party entities, the purpose of which, as with all these transactions, is simply to disguise the existence of that very beneficial interest. The production of a newspaper article said to prove Mr Sloutsker’s case goes nowhere near the quality of evidence needed if he is to persuade me that he has lost his beneficial interest in that very valuable asset.

[70]Turning to the US investment of £17 million, Mr Sloutsker denied having invested that money in US private equity, despite the assertions that he had done so in the schedule of assets to which I have already referred, and despite the fact that Mr Sloutsker’s advisers gave detailed explanation to lenders of how the proceeds of sale of the Italian hotels had been used to pay, for example, £21 million on 4 August 2023 to Mr Sloutsker, the latter payment being used to fund the US investments.

[71]In his oral evidence, which in my judgment was properly described on behalf of the applicant as being “incredible”, he attempted to suggest that in fact the investments referred to in the March 2024 Brydg schedule were investments that were made in the 1990s. Given the detailed explanations that were given to Brydg on 26 April 2024, for example, in email exchanges that were copied both to Mr Sloutsker and to Mr Faber, as I have found, that explanation is rightly regarded as being incredible. If, as Mr Sloutsker now says, those explanations to Brydg were mistaken, then he and Mr Faber had ample opportunity to correct those assertions at the time. Neither of them did.

[72]As for the art, I have already made reference to Mr Sloutsker dishonestly claiming not to know the source of the valuation of the art that appears at a little over £3 million on the Brydg schedule. Reference to the Gurr Johns’ valuation reveals a Pistoletto valued at £1 million, a Condo valued at £2 million, a Cindy Sherman valued at £250,000 and other pieces.

[73]Since December 2024, Mr Sloutsker has removed numerous valuable pieces of art from the matrimonial home, including each of those three valuable pieces to which I have already referred. In my judgment, they have been removed in order to avoid their recovery as a way of avoiding enforcement of orders that have been made in these proceedings. I accept Mrs Sloutsker’s evidence that she witnessed some of this art being removed from the matrimonial home and was told by the removal men that it had been taken into storage and/or to Mr Sloutsker’s son’s property.

[74]I have already explained in this judgment that I have come to the conclusion that Mr Sloutsker has been dishonest in his evidence to the court, and he has also been dishonest when he tells me this art was gifted to Mikhail in November 2023, given the evidence that he gave in these proceedings in writing in December of 2024.

[75]The deeds of gift to which I have already referred, have clearly been constructed to persuade whichever court they are presented to that property that actually belongs to Mr Sloutsker, belongs to his son. There are valid criticisms to be made of these deeds in any event, given that they refer to non-specific lists of property which would be unlikely to stand up to any proper scrutiny. Contrary to the evidence that has been given by Mr Faber and by Mikhail Sloutsker himself, it is clear to me that those documents do not contain sufficient specificity to prove provenance for the items that Mr Sloutsker is attempting to put beyond the power of this court.

[76]Mikhail’s evidence before me about the art, how he had sold or pledged it, and where it was stored, was full of contradiction and obfuscation. He has clearly been put in an extremely difficult position by his father and he gave vague and unspecific answers. The whole story, in my judgment, is wholly implausible. There is no doubt in my mind that the art identified in the Gurr Johns’ valuation remains Mr Sloutsker’s property absolutely. So-called transfer documents have been produced in a fabricated form after December 2024, purely as a mechanism to attempt to defeat any claims that Mrs Sloutsker may have in respect of that property.

[77]If I am wrong about that, as I have already found, these lack sufficient specificity to transfer the title to the art from Mr Sloutsker to Mikhail. In any event. I am confident that Mr Sloutsker retains the full beneficial interest because he never intended to divest himself of that interest and in the further alternative, Mikhail must therefore hold that art on resulting trust for Mr Sloutsker absolutely.

[78]I find therefore that, at a minimum, Mr Sloutsker’s resources are: the net equity in family home approximately £17 million, the funds in REYL bank £4 million, his home in Moscow £22.5 million, the development site in Moscow £150 million, the investments in US private equity £17 million and the art £4 million.

[79]Of that, £42 million is readily liquid: the equity in the family home, the funds in REYL bank, the investments in the US and the art. The £22.5 million in the Moscow home is, I find, realisable. I accept the £150 million land is likely to be illiquid in the short term but, as Mr Sloutsker said in evidence, he will “probably” be able to commercialise that in the future.

[80]Of that resource, Mrs Sloutsker, based on what I have accepted was the standard of living of this family and on the principle that needs are elastic, has identified for herself a housing budget of £15 million, a capitalisation of periodical payments of approximately £30,000 per month coming to £10 million, together with maintenance for both children.

[81]The sums of £15 million and £10 million formed part, in my judgment, of discussions between the parties last summer in 2024 when the marriage was coming to an end. They are sums that are entirely reasonable in the circumstances having regard to the factors in section 25 of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973, in particular the standard of living of this family and of the resources that I have found to exist for this family.

[82]Given that on the applicant’s case Mr Sloutsker retains his £22.5 million home in Moscow and his interest in the £150 million site in Moscow, an order for £25 million constitutes just under 60% of the readily liquid assets, much less of the entire resources, and is an entirely modest, proportionate and fair order in this case .

[83]That such sums were the basis of the discussions that I find took place between Mr and Mrs Sloutsker last summer simply confirms the appropriateness of such an order. In his closing statement to me, it is significant that Mr Sloutsker’s objection to such an order is not that the sums themselves are unreasonable or beyond the applicant’s needs. He relies on essentially two submissions: first, that the order should not be made in the terms sought by Mrs Sloutsker because of a pre-nuptial agreement; and, secondly that the order should not be made because it is not affordable. The latter I have already dismissed in my calculation and explanation for the funds that are available to this family. The former argument I shall deal with now.

[84]In my judgment, the agreement is neither fair nor one that should be upheld. I accept Mrs Sloutsker’s evidence that she was pressured into signing the contract.

[85]In addition, it is obvious that Mrs Sloutsker was not given the usual safeguards necessary to enable her to fully understand the implications of the pre-nuptial agreement. She did not have proper independent advice. The lawyer Mr Sloutsker put her in touch with had worked as an intern for his own lawyer. The advice which she received was simply to sign the contract, and there was no negotiation and no proposals made for any changes. I accept her evidence that she received no advice on the significance of the contract either in Israel or in England and she really had no idea at all as to what rights she was giving up by signing such an agreement. If all that were not enough, she received no financial disclosure, she had no means of understanding what capital was available to Mr Sloutsker at the time or what in due course she might need to support herself and the children if and when her relationship broke down.

[86]It is significant, in my judgment, that Mr Sloutsker did not execute the agreement or register it in accordance with Israeli requirements, so the agreement even now is not valid in Israel. I accept Mrs Sloutsker’s evidence that Mr Sloutsker assured her that it was not enforceable and that he would not rely upon it and he did so, in my judgment, because he knew that the agreement was not fair.

[87]He knew it was not fair when he made his informal offer to which I have already referred: initially £8 million for housing, rising to £15 million, together with a lump sum of £10 million. Those sums Mrs Sloutsker now seeks, together with the monthly maintenance and the children’s medical, education and holiday expenditure. There is no possibility, in my judgment, having seen and heard Mr Sloutsker give evidence, and the way in which he has conducted these proceedings, that he would be making such an offer if he thought that the pre-nuptial agreement was fair.

[88]It is right to say that he has now changed his position about what capital payments may be reasonable, but that is nothing, in my judgment, but a late tactical change in his case which he can now not rely upon as demonstrating genuine belief on his part that the pre-nuptial agreement was ever fair or one that would meet Mrs Sloutsker’s needs. It is not and does not.

[89]There is nothing of substance between the parties’ final positions as regards periodical payments for the children. The sums that Mrs Sloutsker seeks for the children are entirely justified on the basis of need, having regard to the standard of living during the course of the marriage.

[90]Mr Sloutsker’s own offer in respect of the children is £120,000 per child per year to be paid monthly until each child reaches the age of 21 with an £80,000 annual vacation allowance for the children each until they reach the age of 21, albeit the payments commencing no later than 15 December of this year.

[91]In making that offer broadly speaking in exactly the same terms as sought on behalf of Mrs Sloutsker, I need say no more about that.

[92]So in conclusion, I consider that there is considerable justification for the order that is sought on behalf of Mrs Sloutsker. I have been provided with a draft order in which I am asked to require Mr Sloutsker to pay to the applicant non-variable lump sums within 28 days of the sealing of the order of £25 million, plus £750,000-odd arrears of the legal services payment order, plus £274,000 arrears of maintenance pending suit, together with income.

[93]Those lump sums should be reduced pound for pound for the amount paid to the applicant pursuant to an order for sale. The order for sale being: that the family home should be sold forthwith on the open market. The receivers appointed by Brydg, who have been consulted over the terms of this proposed order, shall have conduct of the sale and the proceeds of sale applied to, in the following

[94]Entirely sensible provisions are made in the order for chattels, for the continuation of the interim periodical payments until the payment of the lump sums, for the child periodical payments to which I have already referred, a school fees order that is entirely conventional and a clean break as to capital and income in the usual terms.

[95]On the basis that the payment of a lump sum in respect of the arrears of the legal services payment order is made, I am asked to make no order as to costs as between the applicant and the second respondent, the third respondent and the fourth respondent, as well as no order as to costs as between the applicant and the first respondent, with liberty to apply and permissions to disclose. Such an order would be made on the basis of declarations that I have made within my judgment, most particularly that 100% of the beneficial interest in the family home and accordingly in the net proceeds of sale is held by Roosevelt on resulting trust for Mr Sloutsker absolutely, and that therefore the whole of the equity in the family home is available to make financial provision for the applicant.

[96]That is an order that I am entirely satisfied meets the justice of the case for the reasons that I have set out this afternoon, and, in those circumstances, it is the order that I make on this application. (Proceedings continued, please see separatetranscript) - - - - - - - - - - - - - (This Judgment has been approved by the Judge.) Digital Transcription by Marten Walsh Cherer Ltd., 2nd Floor, Quality House, 6-9 Quality Court, Chancery Lane, London WC2A 1HP. Telephone No: 020 7067 2900. DX 410 LDE Email: info@martenwalshcherer.com Web: www.martenwalshcherer.com

order

all sums due to Brydg, the receivers’ remuneration, et cetera, the conveyancing costs of sale, any tax or other obligations, et cetera, the estate agents’ commission, any order for costs made against the applicant in favour of Brydg, including the costs already agreed, other costs or expenses properly incurred, and in the payment of any outstanding lump sums due to the applicant, then, and only then, any balance paid to Mr Sloutsker.