It turns out that Mr Imerman shared Mayfair offices with his brothers-in-law, the entreprenuers, Vincent and Robert Tchenguiz. On the breakdown of his sister’s marriage, Robert had his IT staff hack into and  copy Mr Imerman’s personal and business data held on the office machines, for use in the divorce proceedings. Not surprisingly, Mr Imerman asked Mr Justice Moylan to order the return of the data and documents and, in the divorce proceedings, to prevent reference to the information they provided.

Whilst passing adverse comment on the Tchenguiz camp’s behaviour Mr Justice Moylan took the pragmatic line that since many of the documents (20,000 were accessed!) Mr Imerman wanted returned had been seen by Ms Tchenguiz, she could keep them for use in the proceedings.  The judge registered the strength of his disapproval of her conduct by ordering her to pay Mr Imerman’s cost thought to be over £500,000. Added to her own costs its likely the latest episode cost Ms Tchenguiz around£1 million. High though that may be, we are told the costs to date in the case, after just 13 hearings, stand at around £5.5 million. No doubt that has led to the speculation that Ms Tchenguiz is  aiming for £100 million of her husband’s money, a year after the proceedings started.

Mr Imerman is apparently off to the Court of Appeal to have Mr Justice Moylan’s decision reconsidered.  As with Marco Pierre White’s pending claim against his ex-wife’s solicitors Withers for the wrongful seizure of documents, that Court’s ruling is eagerly awaited, for the guidance it is likely to bring on what’s reasonable and what’s not in the documentary wars between well-heeled divorcing spouses.

When all that’s settled, it seems likely that we’ll hear still more of the case, this time in the context of the pre-nuptial agreement signed under South African law, when Ms Tchenguiz is thought to have been worth more than Mr Imerman, and both thought it appropriate, in the event of divorce, to walk away with what they brought to it!