Former Dragon’s Den’s star and entrepreneur Duncan Bannatyne has failed in an attempt to prevent a newspaper from reporting allegations that he gave false evidence during his divorce in 2012.  

Last month, the Mail on Sunday claimed that during the course of his divorce proceedings, Mr Bannatyne had misrepresented the terms of a business agreement he had with Graham Armstrong, who ran one of his fitness companies, and had done so in an attempt to reduce the share of assets that his wife could claim in the divorce. The Dragon’s Den star had subsequently expressed “deep regret” and apologised for the way in which the business agreement had been misrepresented.

Mr Bannatyne took legal action to try and stop the newspaper from publishing these allegations, claiming that information about his divorce should be kept private. However the Judge ruled that there was a public interest in exposing Mr Bannatyne’s attempts to mislead a court even though he had apologised for doing so.

This is another in an increasingly long line of media stories involving husbands failing to provide full disclosure of their assets in divorce proceedings.   In all Court proceedings dealing with the division of assets on divorce, each spouse is legally required to provide the Court with full details of their entire financial position. This information is required to ensure that the Court and both parties are aware of the full extent of each other’s financial circumstances at the time a decision is being made as to how the matrimonial assets are to be divided.

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