A man engaged a human resources company that “bombarded” his seriously ill wife with messages and asked her to engage in a disciplinary process in respect of a business they founded and operated together, a High Court judge has said.
Making orders in divorce proceedings, Mr Justice Max Barrett said the woman was very unwell and had to undergo several challenging operations when her husband began asking her to document her illnesses to the HR department of their business, which is based overseas.
The HR firm “harassed” her, sometimes messaging her daily, re-assessed her pay and, “quelle surprise”, concluded she was overpaid, the judge said. She was later dismissed and is now pursuing an unfair dismissal claim.
At the same time that the man perceived his then-wife to be in transgression of a HR policy, he was “delving into the company funds for extravagant ‘personal entertainment’ expenditure” and allowing inaccurate accounts to be filed with the companies registration office, the judge said in one of three related rulings published on Wednesday.
In his first judgment, delivered more than a year ago but published on Wednesday, Mr Justice Barrett granted a decree of divorce sought by the wife and set out custody arrangements for their children, division of assets and maintenance payments to be made by the man.
In his second decision, he refused the man’s request to vary the level of maintenance ordered.
Privy purse
Mr Justice Barrett said the man and his brother were directors of the company, while the woman was not. The brother is now the sole director.
The man, who had himself adjudicated bankrupt in his home country, used company money as “something of a privy purse, latterly spending large untaxed amounts of the company’s funds on what might euphemistically be described as ‘personal entertainment’”, the judge said.
A forensic accountant called by the woman gave evidence that the average amount “anomalously” spent over a four-month sample period was close to €16,000 per month, he said.
In his most recent judgment given last month, the judge expressed concern that the ex-husband may be seeking to use the private nature of these family law proceedings to “conceal his corporate and revenue wrongdoings in such a manner as to impede the proper and informed course of justice”.
He also had a concern the man could be “playing ducks and drakes” with the family law system in Ireland and the insolvency process in his home country.
The man gave “patently wrong” financial information to the High Court in this family case and applied for a variation of maintenance orders using financial details that “appear to differ” from those he provided to the insolvency service abroad, the judge said.
While policing corporate and tax wrongdoings is for the man’s home country, the judge said the woman's lawyers argued his family law judgments should be made available for the overseas insolvency service to “make as much or as little as it likes of” it.
The woman had asked for the matters to be disclosed with identifying features redacted in the interests of her and her children.
The judge said he was informed a foreign insolvency service runs a risk of making an uninformed decision that could potentially be to the “lasting detriment” of the man’s wife and children.
Mr Justice Barrett said he has “little doubt” that the man will apply to the Irish court for a permanent reduction in maintenance if he ends up being fully and finally adjudicated bankrupt in his home country.
He permitted the disclosure of his judgments to various bodies.
