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Enhancing Public Accountability: Key Elements of the Public Office (Accountability) Bill 2025
Kirsty Cook
Kingsley Napley’s Family team is pleased to have secured a landmark ruling for their client, Stalo Michael, a wife bringing divorce and financial proceedings against her husband, Mario Michael. Three separate judgments in these proceedings have now been published.
Over three years of litigation, Kingsley Napley, instructing Christopher Pocock KC, Thomas Haggie, Andrew Mold KC and Joseph Steadman, has successfully argued that Mr Michael has shielded significant assets in a sham trust which should form part of the overall matrimonial assets to be shared on divorce. In a rare ruling, His Honour Judge Hess (sitting as a Deputy High Court Judge) has determined that the Trust set up by Mr Michael was indeed a sham and in reality Mr Michael controlled the Trust assets at his sole discretion.
Kingsley Napley’s client Mrs Michael commenced divorce proceedings in 2022, following a 22-year long marriage to Mr Michael, a prolific property investor and developer in North London who had an interest in over 200 properties. Mr Michael’s conduct from the outset triggered extremely complex and highly contested litigation requiring seven other parties, including a company operated by Mr Michael, to be joined to the proceedings and the court heard evidence from over 30 witnesses.
His Honour Judge Hess found that Mr Michael was a “fundamentally dishonest man, quite prepared to be wholly and deliberately dishonest when it suits him to be” who had a “deliberate intention” to leave Mrs Michael “homeless and in a financially parlous situation.” The Judge further commented that Mr Michael had “unfortunately done everything in his power” to ensure that Mrs Michael “would not receive her fair share of the fruits of a long marriage.”
Mr Michael was said by HHJ Hess to be “a dominating and menacing presence” who “likes people to know that he is in charge and that doing what he says will generate a reward and crossing him will generate a punitive reaction.”
At a final hearing which took place in May of this year, which dealt with complex arguments regarding the true value of Mr Michael’s interests in his property investment and development businesses, Mr Michael was ordered to pay a series of lump sums totalling £15 million to Mrs Michael.
Jane Keir, Family Law Partner at Kingsley Napley who leads Mrs Michael’s legal team, comments:
Proving that a trust is a sham trust is a complex matter, particularly in circumstances where the party seeking to challenge the arrangement often does not have access to the key evidence. We are pleased the court has decided in our client’s favour and provided clarity on sham trusts in a family law context. No one should be aided in the concealment of funds that should properly be considered shared matrimonial assets.
This has been a long and, at times, highly frustrating process for our client as she courageously fights to uphold her rights before the court. Her husband’s needless strategy of obfuscation has only served to worsen his position and increase costs.
This case should act as a warning to others tempted by creating a false trail designed to thwart the lawful interests of a former partner. The family court has shown it has no hesitation in exposing such misleading conduct.”
In a separate judgment also made within these proceedings and now public, the Family Court acceded to a rare request to appoint receivers to help enforce orders relating to monies owed to Mrs Michael by Mr Michael in unpaid maintenance and legal fees ordered in December 2023 and a payment of £850,000 towards the wife’s costs. HHJ Hess recognised that Mr Michael had shown “no wish to comply with my order in any sense and had no regard for the importance of his obligation to comply with that order” and felt that his “very obvious refusal to cooperate in any way” meant that such an order was appropriate in the circumstances.
Mr Michael has been ordered to pay numerous costs orders, the most significant of which was an order to pay 85% of Mrs Michael’s costs incurred up to shortly after the substantive hearing in August 2024 on the indemnity basis. Efforts to secure full recovery of all sums due to Mrs Michael, including her award of £15million are active and ongoing.
Mr Michael has made several applications for permission to appeal to the Court of Appeal, one of which was refused by Lord Justice Moylan and the remainder await a decision.
-ENDS-
Counsel for Mrs Stalo Michael are Mr Christopher Pocock KC of 1 Kings Bench Walk; Mr Thomas Haggie of QEB Chambers; Andrew Mold KC and Joseph Steadman of Wilberforce Chambers. Kingsley Napley’s team are partners Jane Keir and Abby Buckland, Senior Associate Hannah Butcher and Senior Paralegal Sam Blott.
The three relevant judgments now public are:
12th August 2024: sham trust finding https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ewfc/2024/463?query=Michael+Michael
13th January 2025: enforcement and Receivership issues https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ewfc/2025/244?query=Michael+Michael
23rd May (updated 11th June) 2025: financial remedies proceedings https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ewfc/2025/245?query=Michael+Michael
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