Judgment of Dixon [2025] EWHC 1886 (Ch)

Jonathan Lopian (instructed by Hill Dickinson LLP) acted for the successful trustees (Emma Sayers and Jeremy Willmont of BDO LLP).

The former managing partner and head of UK taxation at Ernst & Young earning £2 million a year, who was declared bankrupt on HMRC’s petition in August 2017, executed several declarations of trust in favour of his wife together with a loan agreement in 2010 which the High Court has now found to be shams and transactions that were aimed at putting all his assets beyond the reach of his creditors.

In the first part of the trustees’ action to recover Mr John Dixon’s assets for his bankruptcy estate, the court has set side the transactions and ordered his wife to pay his trustees £653,315 plus costs. There remains to be tried the trustees’ claim for a full account of all the cash assets Mr Dixon transferred to his wife (estimated to be in excess of £2 ½ million) between the date of the transactions and the date of his bankruptcy.

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