As digital assets become increasingly mainstream, there is a corresponding rise in disputes involving cryptocurrency in divorce and financial remedy proceedings.

Commenting in the Financial Times, partner Mark Harper discussed the practical and legal challenges crypto can present when parties fail to provide full and frank disclosure.

Under the disclosure obligations in England and Wales, divorcing spouses must set out all assets, including crypto holdings, within Form E. However, there is no standalone section for cryptocurrency. Instead, such assets must be disclosed under “other assets”, creating scope for misunderstanding, omission, or, in some cases, deliberate concealment.

Mark highlighted the technical and enforcement difficulties that can arise:

“Unless you know what you are doing, it can be hard to trace, hard to enforce disclosure, hard to get a freezing order over unless you are very specialist and hard to enforce against.”

While crypto is often described as a new frontier, the underlying issue is familiar. Attempts to obscure wealth have long featured in high-value financial proceedings, whether through offshore structures, complex corporate arrangements or opaque investment vehicles. Cryptocurrency adds a further layer of complexity due to its decentralised and pseudonymous nature.

For practitioners acting in high net worth and ultra high net worth cases, this reinforces the need for early specialist advice, careful forensic analysis and, where appropriate, targeted court applications to secure disclosure and preserve assets.

Read Mark’s comments published in the Financial Times, here.