Abstract

In CF v MF & others [2022] ZAGPPHC 644 (‘CF’), the applicant sought the joinder of a trust and related parties to divorce proceedings because the trust was her husband’s alter ego. This note suggests that CF is yet another example of the much-lamented confusion emanating from the conflation of the sham and veneer-piercing scenarios in our jurisprudence on trust-form abuse in the divorce context. This is mainly due to imprecise engagement with leading precedent, the failure to consult relevant scholarship, and a lack of interrogation of the nature of the ultimate relief that the applicant sought. The result of these errors — committed by bar and bench — is a technically unsound judgment that ultimately overlooked that the joinder proceedings were objectionable for being inconsonant with the positive law. While proper engagement with precedent and scholarship could have resulted in a judgment that provided much-needed clarity on this branch of the law, CF has instead intensified the obfuscation that surrounds it.