A woman embroiled in a bitter divorce battle has taken her estranged husband’s girlfriend to court in an attempt to obtain her private financial records, but the High Court has ruled against her, setting aside a subpoena demanding extensive banking and financial information.
The Eastern Cape High Court in Thembalethu dismissed the woman’s application to compel D Lawrence, her husband’s current partner, to hand over the documents, finding that the subpoena amounted to an abuse of court process.
In a judgment delivered on Monday, Judge Phillipa Susan Van Zyl found that the woman had sought to investigate virtually every aspect of Lawrence’s financial and personal affairs over several years without establishing a proper evidential basis for doing so.
The judge said the subpoena was excessively broad, lacked sufficient justification and sought information from someone who was not a party to the divorce proceedings.
Wife sought four years of girlfriend’s financial records
The subpoena, issued on March 27, 2026, demanded extensive documentation relating to Lawrence’s financial affairs between 2021 and 2024.
The 58 categories of requests included bank statements, employment contracts, earnings, bonuses, loans, payslips, tax returns, motor vehicle records, property documents and financial correspondence.
The woman sought the records on the basis of a court order granted in April 2024 during proceedings between her and her estranged husband under Rule 43(6).
That order allowed her to appoint a forensic expert, at her own expense, to investigate the value of her husband’s estate and establish whether he had understated its value by more than 15%.
If an understatement was established, the husband would be required to reimburse the expert’s costs and pay his wife 50% of the shortfall she would otherwise have been entitled to.
The forensic expert was authorised to subpoena people believed to have information about the existence, identity or value of assets and liabilities forming part of the husband’s estate.
However, judge Van Zyl said the order did not empower the woman to independently subpoena third parties based merely on her own suspicions.
Court questions basis for targeting girlfriend
Lawrence acknowledged that financial transactions naturally occurred between her and her partner.
However, the judge said this alone did not justify an inference that she possessed information about her partner’s estate or was concealing assets on his behalf.
The court found that the woman’s papers did not explain what evidence had prompted the forensic expert to believe Lawrence’s records were necessary, or why the extensive documentation sought was reasonably required.
The judge also noted that the subpoena appeared to be a re-issue of an earlier subpoena issued about a year previously but expanded to cover an even wider range of documents.
According to Lawrence’s papers, her partner had already disclosed more than 1,500 pages of financial documents.
The judge said there was no explanation from the forensic expert about what deficiencies remained in that disclosure, what investigations had already been undertaken or why the information already available was insufficient.
Judge says subpoena amounted to fishing expedition
The judge said subpoenas must serve a legitimate forensic purpose and cannot be used to conduct sweeping investigations into another person’s private affairs in the hope that useful information might emerge.
The judge found that the woman had effectively taken over the role of the court-appointed forensic expert.
There was no affidavit from the expert confirming that Lawrence’s documents were relevant or necessary, no interim audit report, no update on the investigation and no explanation justifying the breadth of the subpoena.
Instead, the subpoena sought broad categories of documents touching virtually every aspect of Lawrence’s private financial and personal affairs over several years.
The court found that the requests also materially overlapped with information already disclosed by the husband.
Furthermore, the judge said the forensic process was intended to analyse the husband’s disclosure, reconcile records, identify inconsistencies and seek targeted additional information where necessary.
The subpoena, however, proceeded on assumptions about undisclosed dealings and sought extensive information from Lawrence without identifying specific unresolved forensic issues.
Court warns of prejudice to husband’s girlfriend
The judge accepted that disclosure of Lawrence’s personal information could result in irreversible prejudice, particularly given the animosity between the woman and her estranged husband.
Judge Van Zyl said the court process appeared to be used to intimidate Lawrence.
The judge stressed that although subpoenas are important tools in litigation, courts retain the power to intervene where they are used oppressively or constitute an abuse of process.
The court dismissed the woman’s application to compel compliance and set aside the subpoena.
There was no order as to costs, as both women had represented themselves in the proceedings.
