The test for
this was established in the Supreme Court decision in Sharland v
Sharland [2016] AC 871. Where Baroness Hale at paragraphs
32-33 held:
But this is a case of fraud.
A party who has
practised deception with a view to a particular end,
which has been attained by it, cannot be allowed to deny
its materiality. Furthermore, the court is in no position
to protect the victim from the deception, or to conduct
its statutory duties properly, because the court too has
been deceived.
The only exception is where the court
is satisfied that, at the time when it made the consent
order, the fraud would not have influenced a reasonable
person to agree to it, nor, had it known then what it
knows now, would the court have made a significantly
different order, whether or not the parties had agreed to
it. But in my view, the burden of satisfying the court of
that must lie with the perpetrator of the fraud. It was
wrong in this case to place on the victim the burden of
showing that it would have made a difference.
|