For decades, family lawyers have dealt with a vast range of assets, from property and pensions to jewellery and pets, but now there’s something new to consider—cryptocurrency. Once a rare occurrence, digital assets are becoming increasingly prevalent in high-net-worth financial remedy cases, raising the question of whether practitioners and the law are prepared for disputes surrounding digital wealth.
Concealed wealth in cryptocurrency
Digital assets, which exist only on blockchain technology, are inherently difficult to trace, identify and value, adding an additional layer of complexity for family lawyers dealing with them in financial remedy proceedings. For some, decentralised currency has become a convenient means of concealing wealth, rousing suspicions among an increasing number of clients that their former spouse could be moving funds into cryptocurrency or digital tokens without traceability.
Indeed, Form E (financial statement for a financial order) currently has no dedicated section for digital assets, opening a door for people to deliberately omit any mention of their existence under the pretext of it being ‘accidental’. At present,
