An English court has agreed that a British solicitor working in the United Arab Emirates for 14 years may file divorce proceedings in his adopted home.

The unnamed wife in SA v FA issued proceedings in England last September but her husband asserted that they were resident and domiciled in the UAE and so that was the best jurisdiction to deal with the divorce.

The husband had issued proceedings, which were paused while the jurisdiction issue was resolved, with the newly-created Non-Muslim Family Court in Abu Dhabi.

His Honour Judge Edward Hess found that UAE was the correct jurisdiction, rejecting the notion that using this court could lead to substantial injustice for the wife and saying there was no reason to assume that any judge might handle the case unfairly.

The court heard that the couple had been living in the Middle East since 2008 when the husband took up a position with a law firm in the UAE. They married the same year in England and later had twins.

The judge found that the parties were domiciled in England and therefore the courts of England and Wales had jurisdiction to deal with their divorce and financial remedies proceedings. He then turned to where proceedings should take place.

The husband, who is on a tax-free income of £850,000 a year, has assets worth £4.5m in total compared to his wife who has £15,305. He told the court there was no intention of changing the arrangement where he pays almost all his family’s outgoings, including rent on his wife’s home and the children’s school fees.

He also said he would be prepared to give an undertaking to the English court to pay the reasonable legal costs of his wife in the divorce proceedings, assuming the case was allowed to proceed in the UAE.

The new court in Abu Dhabi was established last December and has handled 50 cases to date, although there were no reported decisions on its new statutory financial remedies powers. The court has power to make orders including lump sum orders and child support orders.

Lawyers for the wife argued that because the new court remains embryonic, the English court could not accept that it would provide ‘substantial justice’. It was submitted that the only judge yet appointed was a Muslim Emirati, and there should be concern that any decision would be ‘substantially influenced’ by Sharia norms.

The judge disagreed, saying the new court had been set up with a view to giving assurance to non-Muslims that if they become divorced, they would be dealt in the same way as they would be in a non-Muslim country.

He added: ‘It may be that the wife would have a better outcome in the English courts than under the UAE courts (though even this is not certain), but even if this is the case, it would not in my view be correct for me to regard this factor as determinative, nor should I see this as a reason for concluding that the wife would not receive ‘substantial justice’ in the courts of the UAE.’