A judge has been asked to jail a specialist financial adviser accused of owing an ex-wife £2m.
Sarah Rogan had asked the judge to commit her ex-husband Grant Rogan, founder of the Blenheim Capital Group, to prison for breaching an agreement made following the breakdown of their 10-year marriage.
Ms Rogan, of Pusey, Oxfordshire, suggested that Mr Rogan was wilfully refusing to pay money owed.
Mr Rogan, 63, who has remarried and lives near Reading, Berkshire, says he cannot currently afford to pay.
Mr Justice Holman analysed preliminary issues on Thursday and indicated that decisions would be made after a further hearing later in the year.
During the family court hearing he had contemplated halting proceedings because the case listing wrongly said he was sitting behind closed doors.
Mr Justice Holman said he had not realised that the case was wrongly listed as being in private until about two hours after the hearing began.
The judge had made it clear at the start of the hearing, in the Family Division of the High Court in London on Thursday, that he was sitting in public.
He said a reporter covering the case was free to report "every word".
But he told lawyers that the case should have been listed as being in public, and the people involved named on court listings, because someone's liberty was at stake.
The judge said he was prepared to stop and start again after the case had been properly listed.
He said the incorrect listing had prevented members of the public attending the hearing.
But he decided to carry on, after consulting the parties involved, because he had sat in public and a reporter had been in court.
He ordered staff to post a new listing outside the court which made it clear that the case was being heard in public and named the people involved.
"I have just discovered that the list doesn't say that this matter is in open court," he told lawyers and Mr and Ms Rogan after returning to court following a break.
"I have taken steps to put that right.
"This case has been heard in public and a member of the press has been present pretty much throughout.
"But the case listing says it is in private so any member of the public who wanted to attend would have thought that they could not do so.
"We don't imprison people in secret in this country and the case has been wrongly listed.
"I didn't realise what the list said.
"I don't personally check the list."
