De La Sala: Non-Disclosure, Mistake and the Limits of Undoing Divorce Settlements

This case explores material non-disclosure in divorce settlements and the limits of mistake claims when unwinding substantial gifts.

Summary

In the recent case of De La Sala v De La Sala [2026] EWCA Civ 282, the Court of Appeal addressed two distinct but closely connected issues arising out of somewhat unusual circumstances linked to the divorce between Maria-Christina De La Sala and her former husband, James Copinger-Symes. Both issues were considered against the background of a long-running, high-value intra-family dispute within a prominent family, in which Maria-Christina had become estranged from her family who ultimately aligned themselves with James rather than with her.

The first issue in the appeal concerned whether a final financial remedy consent order should remain set aside following the receipt by James, some 5 months after the order was made, of substantial gifts exceeding $25 million from Maria-Christina’s mother, Felicite. The question for the Court was whether the gifts and James’ knowledge of their likelihood before the order was approved, amounted to “material non-disclosure” sufficient to justify setting aside the order. The court below held that they were and had set aside the consent order.  James now appealed that position. 

The second issue arose from an intervention by Maria-Christina’s mother, Felicite, who sought to unwind the gifts. Felicite argued that the gifts were a mistake or subject to a condition that they should not benefit Maria-Christina. On that basis, she contended that the funds ought to be returned to her.

Both challenges ultimately failed. In dismissing the appeals, the Court reiterated the importance of full and frank disclosure in financial remedy proceedings and that not every mistake will suffice to unwind a transaction.  The decision of the lower court to set aside the financial remedy consent order was upheld and we presume that what is now happening is that Maria-Christina and James are now arguing about how, if at all, the gifts impact what reasonable financial provision on the divorce should look like with it perhaps being presumed that this will be something more advantageous to Maria-Christina than the original consent order.

The Facts

Maria-Christina and James married in 1998 and separated in 2017. Maria-Christina came from a wealthy family but had been wholly estranged from her parents and siblings since around 2017. James, by contrast, retained their confidence and support.

Following protracted financial remedy proceedings during the divorce, Maria-Christina and James entered into a consent order in March 2022. The order provided for a clean break, including the payment by Maria-Christina to James of a lump sum of £850,000 and the payment of school fees for their children. At that stage, the disclosed assets totalled between approximately £3.6 million and £6.2 million.

In July and August 2022, shortly after the order was granted, James received gifts from Maria-Christina’s parents totalling approximately $25 million. These transfers came to light during enforcement proceedings, prompting Maria-Christina to apply to set aside the consent order on grounds of material non-disclosure by her former husband.

Felicite intervened seeking repayment of the gifts, arguing that she would never have made them if there had been any possibility that Maria-Christina might benefit, and advanced claims based on implied condition or equitable mistake.

At first instance, the judge accepted Maria-Christina’s set-aside application and rejected Felicite’s application.  After hearing evidence from James, Felicite and Maria-Christina’s siblings, the judge found that James had set out to mislead the court by concocting a false story and suppressing relevant information and documents. The judge held that James had long known that he was likely to receive a substantial gift of at least $10 million after the financial remedy proceedings with Mara-Christina were resolved and had deliberately failed to disclose this at the time the consent order was agreed. The judge set aside the consent order, and Felicite’s claims were dismissed. James and Felicite both appealed.

The Decision of the Court of Appeal

(1) James’ appeal: material non-disclosure

While James accepted knowledge of an impending gift was disclosable, he argued that the judge at first instance should have found that his non-disclosure was not material. In particular, James contended that Maria-Christina knew that there would be very substantial support from her parents to him and that it would have been of a similar scale as the gifts he actually received. He also argued that, at the date of the consent order, the parties confirmed they were satisfied that their needs were met. In the proceedings, Maria-Christina was not claiming her needs were not met by the agreed order and insofar as she might have a ‘needs case’, James argued that the fact he received a substantial sum some 5 years after the parties had separated (even if it was close in time to the consent order) did not impact Maria-Christina’s living expenses. In summary, James’ case was that the judge should have determined that his non-disclosure could not be causative of any different ‘needs’ argument on the part of Maria-Christina and so did not justify setting aside the March 2022 consent order.

On the other hand, Maria-Christina argued that the information that James would likely receive at least $10 million from her parents completely changed the landscape and nature of the case as presented in 2022. For example, had she known that James was due to receive $10 million there would have been no basis for her to pay James £850,000 or for her to meet school fees.

The Court of Appeal emphasised that, in cases of deliberate non-disclosure, a presumption that the non-disclosure was material applies and the burden lies on the non-disclosing party to establish that proper disclosure would not have led to a substantially different order. Here, the court found that James had not sufficiently discharged that burden. In addition, the judge agreed that the prospect of James receiving at least $10 million completely changed the nature of the case as presented in 2022. The court was also not persuaded by James’ argument that this was a needs case and that Maria-Christina’s needs were met, on the basis that “needs are not assessed in a vacuum but are always assessed in the context of the available resources” (para 75). The non-disclosure by James was therefore plainly material.

James’ appeal was dismissed and the order of the lower court, to set-aside the consent order was upheld.

(2) Felicite’s appeal: implied condition / mistake

Felicite’s first ground of appeal was that the gifts to James were made subject to an implied condition that Maria-Christina should not benefit from them. She argued that this condition was so obvious that it “went without saying”, with the result that the mere possibility of any benefit to Maria-Christina caused the basis of the gifts to fail and required their repayment in full.

The Court of Appeal rejected this analysis finding that the gifts were outright gifts, not conditional. This was strongly supported by the evidence, including the terms of a letter accompanying the gifts and Felicite’s own concession that, once transferred, the money was “James’ money” to use as he wished.

Felicite’s alternative case relied on the equitable jurisdiction to set aside transactions (including gifts) for a sufficiently serious mistake under Pitt v Holt.  In that case, the Supreme Court held that, in summary, a donor can unwind a transaction if the donor was under some mistake of so serious a character as to render it unjust on the part of the donee to retain the property given to them. The mistake must, though, be the cause of the transaction and it is not enough if the donor was ignorant of matters relevant to the gift or made a misprediction about future events. In the present case, Felicite argued that the gifts were made under the mistaken belief that the financial remedy proceedings were final and that Maria-Christina could not benefit from them.

The Court of Appeal held that even if Felicite held this belief, the threshold in Pitt v Holt had not been met:

1. On the evidence, the judge was not persuaded that Felicite’s belief that the gift could not benefit Maria-Christina was causative. The dominant purpose was to benefit James personally, particularly following a diagnosis of cancer.
2. The judge found that the mistake was not sufficiently grave as to undermine the gift. In particular, Felicite understood the legal nature of what she was doing: she was making an unconditional gift to James. Her wish that Maria-Christina should not benefit was collateral to the essence of making the gift; it was not foundational to it.
3. The judge also held that it was not unconscionable for James to retain the gifts even if, as a matter of family law, he might be obliged to share some part of them with Maria-Christina. Unwanted collateral consequences are not, the court said, sufficient to justify the setting aside of an unconditional voluntary disposition.

Felicite’s appeal was therefore dismissed.

Taken together, the appeals in De La Sala v De La Sala demonstrate the court’s approach to flexibility and fairness in financial remedy proceedings. Where a settlement has been procured in the shadow of deliberate non-disclosure, the court will not hesitate to intervene, even after a clean break order has been made. By contrast, the court will approach attempts to unwind completed transactions with more restraint. The equitable doctrine of mistake is not a corrective mechanism of disappointed expectations and will only operate where a fundamental error can be shown to have caused the transaction itself. The decision therefore draws a clear boundary between the consequences of failing to disclose and the more nuanced circumstances in which equity will step in to reverse a transaction: finality will yield to deliberate non-disclosure, but not, to a non-causative mistake.

Key Takeaways

This decision provides several important takeaways:

1. Where non-disclosure is deliberate, the court will presume it to be material and the burden will fall on the non-disclosing party to rebut that presumption.
2. A party’s awareness or suspicion that the other may receive future wealth does not limit the other party’s obligation of full and frank disclosure.
3. The law on mistake can provide a route to unwinding transactions, but it is nuanced. A mistaken assumption about how the law works will not suffice without more, particularly where that assumption was not causative of the gift.

If you have any questions regarding this article, please contact Justin Briggs or Richard Handel. This article was written by Simon Lellouche.