Confidentiality club ordered in a family-law case has been formally used for the first time, according to barrister Gerard Durcan SC. The Court of Appeal said the arrangement could protect sensitive material while allowing lawyers and forensic accountants to examine it.
The case, C v B, concerned non-party discovery in family proceedings and competing demands for disclosure and confidentiality. The High Court and Court of Appeal held that giving the court information needed to make proper provision took priority over privacy or confidentiality concerns raised by a family business.
The Court of Appeal also said confidentiality should be protected as far as possible. Under the arrangement, the parties themselves could not see the information. Access was limited to their lawyers and forensic accountants.
Durcan described the arrangement in an overview at the Law Society Family and Child Law annual conference on 25 September. He said confidentiality clubs had appeared in other litigation and informally in family-law cases, but this was the first formal use he had seen in that field. The Law Society Gazette report details the case.
Confidentiality club ordered amid rising case volume
Durcan said family and child law was becoming increasingly difficult and complicated, and practitioners needed to keep up with a growing volume of judgments. In less than a year, the number of cases for review had almost doubled, he said, calling that increase “quite extraordinary.”
He discussed the Supreme Court decision in M v M, about whether Isaac Wunder orders could be made in family-law proceedings. The orders aim to prevent abuse of process or vexatious litigation. The Supreme Court unanimously held they were permitted and could be made by the High Court, Circuit Court and District Court.
The judges differed over how orders made by lower courts would operate. The majority held that a Circuit Court order could apply nationwide, rather than only within its circuit. Connecting the ruling with the Supreme Court’s 2025 judgment in Kirwan v Connors, Durcan said the understanding of District and Circuit Courts as courts of local and limited jurisdiction “simply has to be re-examined.”
Other cases in Durcan’s review addressed conduct in family disputes. In GC v JC, the High Court considered a failure to disclose an asset, requiring the matter to be revisited. Ms Justice Jackson ruled that 60% of the asset, or its value, should go to the wife. Durcan said the judge explicitly linked the increased allocation to litigation misconduct. He advised practitioners to tell clients that such conduct “may well be reflected in the orders which are made by the court.”
Family-law rulings address settlements and relocation
Durcan cited MV v BK, in which Ms Justice Jackson rejected an application to transfer Circuit Court family proceedings to the High Court. He called it a “fairly ringing endorsement” of the Circuit Court’s ability to handle complex family-law cases.
He referred to NF v OF, concerning settlements signed by both parties, particularly after legal advice. Durcan said the circumstances in which such an agreement would not be ruled should be “very rare indeed.” An obvious error or omission might justify another approach, he said, but it would have to be “quite unusual.”
Relocation cases, Durcan said, offered no neat compromise because one person loses and another wins. He said relocation was probably more difficult for the person seeking it than ten or fifteen years ago.
The review included a Protective Costs Order for a guardian ad litem in Child and Family Agency v Guardian Ad Litem & Anor. Mr Justice Simons said the guardian might not participate in judicial-review proceedings without that protection, and that the child’s interests made participation important, Durcan said.
The cases in Durcan’s review address confidentiality, court access, procedure and litigation conduct. Related Law News Day coverage includes Supreme Court criticism, unresolved criminal-law splits and government accountability cases.
