D v R

Application by the Respondent for the costs of and incidental to the application for disclosure.

The wife has applied for an order that certain information concerning a trust known as the A Trust should be disclosed and that the Trustees of that Trust should be convened in order to give disclosure. That summons has today proceeded by consent and the Court has therefore made the necessary orders. However, I have been asked by the wife to order the husband to pay the costs incurred in connection with this summons.

The background is that the wife has, for a considerable period, been asking for information about this Trust. It appears that it is a trust of which the parents of the husband are the settlors, or it may be just the father. Initially the beneficiaries were the husband, the wife, their children and the brother or sister of the husband. However, in January, 1988, both the husband and the wife were removed as beneficiaries, although it would appear that they were not made excluded persons, so that it would in theory be possible for either of them to be put back as beneficiaries.

During the correspondence the husband has sought to distance himself from the Trust and has asserted repeatedly that it is not really relevant. This was asserted finally, and most clearly, in a letter from his Advocate dated 9 th November in which she said:

"It is clear that this trust is irrelevant. D is neither a settlor, trustee or beneficiary."