This article ponders the implications of a major international divorce case, recently held in London.

The following article, which examines a major divorce case – Potanina v Potanin – comes from Sarah Jane Lenihan (pictured below), who is a partner at law firm Dawson Cornwell. The editors are pleased to share this analysis and invite responses. The usual editorial disclaimers apply to the views of guest writers. Please get involved in the conversation – email tom.burroughes@wealthbriefing.com and amanda.cheesley@clearviewpublishing.com.

Sarah Jane Lenihan

Is England at risk of becoming the family law jurisdiction of choice for the wealthy of the world? A remarkable recent judgment of the Court of Appeal suggests that we may well be further down that road. Over recent decades, England’s commercial courts have heard an ever-increasing number of high value international cases. But it now appears that London’s reputation as the “divorce capital of the world” has been further cemented and looks set to grow further still.

English family lawyers have followed the long-running battle of Potanina v Potanin with a mixture of fascination and unease. After seven years and a multiplicity of hearings, the Potanina case has now travelled through almost every level of the English Court system: the High Court, the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court, which sent it back to the Court of Appeal for further consideration. Its latest judgment will not be the last.

The background of the case starts in 1983 when Natalia Potanina married Vladimir Potanin, chief executive of Norlisk Nickel, the world's largest palladium producer in Russia. As one of the country’s wealthiest businessmen, he was ranked by Forbes magazine in 2025 as the 81st richest in the world, with a net worth in excess of $20 billion.

The couple spent more than 20 years of married life together in Russia, and raised their three children there. In 2014, they divorced in Russia: The Russian courts divided the assets that were in their joint names. However, they left aside a complex web of trusts and companies which held the overwhelming majority of Mr Potanin’s fortune. Although his wife received tens of millions of dollars in the divorce, this was but a small fraction of Mr Potanin’s total wealth.

Mrs Potanina moved to England after the Russian divorce: she obtained an investor visa, and bought property in London. In 2018, she applied under Part III of the Matrimonial and Family Proceedings Act 1984 (“MFPA 1984”) for leave to pursue further relief as regards her 2014 Russian divorce. 

The matter has since generated a body of English case law that may well serve to influence international family disputes for decades to come. More immediately, it shows just how far wealthy litigants are prepared to go: investing remarkable sums in order to test legal principles. 

In its latest judgment, The Court of Appeal ruled that Mrs Potanina had a “real and meaningful connection” to England and “solid” grounds for bringing a claim in London. Lord Justice Stephen Cobb, Lord Justice Andrew Moylan and Lady Justice Sarah Falk said that she was “well placed” to present a case that “the outcome of the Russian matrimonial proceedings had been unjust to her.”

This judgment means that in her claim for financial relief, Mrs Potanina may now proceed to a full hearing on whether England should make a fresh award. 

The wider question is whether this case will serve as a precedent which opens the door for other high net worth individuals who have divorced overseas and want to seek a second bite of the cherry in England? What’s more, at a practical level, if England’s family courts can barely handle the current volume of domestic British cases, how would they manage an influx of divorce cases from overseas?

The Potanina decision reflects a growing willingness of the English courts to engage in revisiting complex, cross-border financial arrangements. From a policy perspective, the case raises serious questions about the wisdom of encouraging international forum shopping. Critics often argue that London is already a magnet for litigation because of its perceived generosity. However, the Potanina case pushes that perception to an entirely new level. It now appears that simply buying a London home and establishing English residency after a foreign divorce may now enable an aggrieved former spouse to re-open settled issues. 

Like many other family lawyers, I am frankly astonished by this development. The 1984 legislation was surely not intended to allow England to re-litigate the financial consequences of foreign marriages whenever one spouse is discontented. Parliament introduced Part III MFPA 1984 in order to correct genuine hardship cases where, for example, a spouse was divorced overseas with no proper provision at all – perhaps because the foreign court had no jurisdiction over assets here. Relief was usually reserved for situations where there are substantial English assets, the applicant has strong connections here, or a foreign award was derisory or completely absent.

A far cry 
That is a far cry from the facts of this case. Both parties are Russian nationals. They lived in Russia and built their fortune there. And they litigated extensively in Russia: Mrs Potanina was awarded millions by the Russian courts. 

Although Mrs Potanina may well have good reason to feel dissatisfied with her Russian divorce settlement, that alone should not make England the forum of choice for revisiting the matter. However sympathetic one may be to her position and the “unjust” nature of Russian matrimonial proceedings, there is a wider principle at stake. Even if the Russian process was inadequate in certain respects, that should not entitle a litigant to shop around elsewhere for a more generous forum. 

Such forum-shopping damages legal certainty worldwide. When a judgment is finally reached on a fraught issue, it should enable the parties to move on with their lives with certainty – a necessary finality for legal and mental health commitments to each case. Yet if cases can later be revisited in courts overseas, how can anyone have legal certainty? What’s to stop foreign courts overturning English judgments?
 
The primary draw of England as a jurisdiction for family cases is that its courts have become well known for generously redistributing wealth, especially in high net worth cases. London remains attractive to the world’s wealthy elite for many diverse reasons, but it now seems possible to buy your way into England and Wales, with a view to reopening a multi-million-pound divorce settlement here. 

Potentially, a number of significant commercial ramifications arise from the recent decision. Ultra-high net worth families often structure their wealth across jurisdictions using assorted mechanisms including trusts, foundations, and corporate entities. If the English courts signal that they are prepared to unpick such structures – even after a comprehensive foreign judgment – then it follows that global wealth planning itself becomes destabilised and made uncertain.

Ultimately, a distinction must be drawn between cases of genuine injustice and those of mere disappointment. That distinction may be fine, but it is imperative. Ordinary families in England and Wales struggling to access their own courts, may understandably look askance at the enormous amount of court time that is devoted to disputes between wealthy foreign nationals. 

Our family courts cannot reasonably be expected to police the inadequacies or rectify the deficiencies of every other jurisdiction. Our stable political legal system has helped to attract foreign investors and wealthy families, often to the greater benefit of our society. However, we must be careful not to encourage “divorce tourism” on a scale that further undermines our much-beleaguered system.