As much as drama might portray divorce as a process fuelled by a need to settle scores, the reality is rather different.

Away from the fictional fireworks, family courts are propelled by a guiding notion: that of fairness.

When it comes to the end of a marriage, the objective of family courts is to determine an arrangement which allows the former spouses involved to resume their lives without hardship.

In many instances, such calculations can be done on a reasonably amicable basis between the individuals in a more relaxed environment away from a courtroom, such as mediation, and then approved by a judge.

However the finances are handled, there must be absolute clarity about nature of a couple’s marital assets and that requires thorough disclosure from both parties on a document known as a ‘Form E’ (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/form-e-financial-statement-for-a-financial-order-matrimonial-causes-act-1973-civil-partnership-act-2004-for-financial-relief-after-an-overseas).

It is not just a nicety. The failure to give “a full, frank and clear disclosure of all your financial and other relevant circumstances” can result in settlements being set aside and even, in more serious cases, a criminal conviction for fraud.

Even with those safeguards, it is still not necessarily uncommon for ex-husbands and wives to exit a marriage feeling financially hard done by.

Where there is a demonstrable argument that the outcome was not fair, the family justice system provides various means of redress.

That is also true for individuals who might have divorced overseas but believe that they received something of a raw deal.

One such long-running case has resurfaced in British courts in recent days.

Natalia Potanina has been granted leave by the Court of Appeal to bring a claim against her former husband, the billionaire minerals tycoon, Vladimir Potanin (https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Potanina-v-Potanin.pdf).

The couple were divorced in Russia in 2014 after a marriage lasting roughly 30 years.

As the latest Court of Appeal ruling sets out, the Russian process was itself “bitterly contested and protracted”.

It involved the division of the “marital property” (ie, those assets legally owned by the couple, either jointly or individually).

In 2019 – five years after moving to the UK – Mrs Potanina brought a claim before the English courts, claiming that the Russian award amounted to less than one per cent of the true marital assets.

The real wealth, she maintained, was held in various trusts and companies in which her ex-husband had a beneficial interest, something which he has acknowledged.

Mrs Potanina brought her claim under part III of the Matrimonial and Family Proceedings Act 1984 (https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1984/42/part/III).

To do so, she needed to satisfy certain jurisdictional requirements, including her being domiciled in this country at the time of her application or being habitually residence for a period of one year before making the application.

Six years ago, though, she was not successful. Despite concluding that her Russian award had been, in his words, “paltry” and causing “hardship”, a judge reasoned that Mrs Potanina had merely settled in the UK to “take advantage” of the “more generous approach” of English divorce courts (https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2019/2956.html).

Put even more succinctly and in words used by some of the UK’s national newspapers, the judge dismissed Mrs Potanina as a divorce tourist, trying to cash in on English courts which are internationally renowned as being more favourable to wives than elsewhere.

The Court of Appeal has now decided that the 2019 judgement was “wrong” and that Mrs Potanina had “substantial, solid, ground for making an application for financial relief under part III of the 1984 Act”.

That judgement has prompted suggestions that she could now be in line for a “massive” divorce payout (https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/russian-oligarch-potanins-ex-wife-can-pursue-massive-divorce-claim-uk-court-2025-09-04/).

However, I would urge caution.

The riches possessed or controlled by Mr Potanin – who was sanctioned by the UK in 2022 as a member of the Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “inner circle” (https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-sanctions-russias-second-richest-man) – seem fantastic to most people.

However, a key consideration in these cases is the ability to enforce ownership of assets held overseas.

Mrs Potanina may achieve a fairer settlement in England and Wales on paper but whether she is able to get her hands on these assets is another matter.

One only has to consider the difficulties experienced by Tatiana Akhmedova as a valid example.

She was awarded £453 million, including a superyacht named Luna, as part of a divorce settlement in 2016 but later proceedings revealed that she ended up receiving only a fraction of that sum (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-56834722).

Furthermore, part III proceedings do not mean that the English courts have an entirely free hand when it comes to revisiting the result of foreign divorces.

Instead, it is not a decision about whether divorces overseas are unfair or not according to those countries’ own laws, simply a finding that they may not have been fair under the law here.

For those people who can successfully argue the right to bring a claim in England and Wales, that distinction can carry very significant benefits.