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Farming & White v White 20 years on.
Understanding and Protecting Pensions Sharing Orders
Learn how to better manage your family forms and orders while improving consistency and efficiency
Pensions on Divorce - Ringfencing the non-matrimonial element
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LSPOs as investments: MT v VA (Second Application: Legal Services Provision order) [2020] EWHC 3087 (Fam)
Roberts J considered a second application for a legal services payment order pursuant to section 22ZA of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973. Case note, 21/01/2021, free -
GC v AS [2021] EWHC 14 (Fam)
The mother was English, and the father was Libyan, with a British passport. They had three children, aged 3, 5 and 6. The mother had left Libya in 2018 but the children had remained there. She now applied under the inherent jurisdiction for orders that the court should protect the children, invoking "the ancient parens patriae jurisdiction": the Crown's obligation to protect those who are unable to protect themselves. She had not raised this in previous unsuccessful proceedings, relying instead on habitual residence and/or Article 10. Had this been a case about money, Mostyn J said, the failure to advance the parens patriae case first time round would not have been justified and therefore the current case would have stopped for Henderson abuse. However, because this was a case about children, he decided that this should instead be considered as part of the overall discretionary exercise as to whether the jurisdiction should be exercised. He found that the circumstances in this case were not sufficiently compelling to require the court to exercise its protective jurisdiction. The evidence showed that an order for repatriation which sought the assistance of the Libyan authorities would be futile. It did not show there had been a major deterioration in the security situation in Libya since the relocation to Libya, to which the wife had consented, nor since the previous order had been made, such that would justify it being set aside. The mother's application was dismissed. Mostyn J urged the father to allow the mother to have meaningful contact with her children. Judgment, 20/01/2021, free -
Crowther v Crowther & Ors [2020] EWHC 3555 (Fam)
The husband and wife had been engaged in highly acrimonious and litigious financial remedy proceedings since late 2019. This hearing concerned the husband's application for the wife to pay, on an indemnity basis, his costs of a preliminary issue regarding the beneficial ownership of five ships and whether the couple were indebted to the second to sixth respondents. The latter issue had been settled following a payment from those respondents to the wife. Lieven J stated that the wife's conduct had been "fairly extraordinary". She had alleged a conspiracy to defraud her of millions of pounds of matrimonial assets, and then decided not to pursue those allegations, having already put the husband to enormous expense and depriving him of the chance to clear his name. It was a basic principle, said Lieven J, that fraud should not be pleaded without sufficient evidence. Where a party pleaded fraud, and then withdrew that claim, the argument that they should pay the other party's costs was even stronger than in the withdrawal of other types of claim. The wife would pay the husband's costs of and occasioned by the preliminary issues on an indemnity basis. Judgment, 15/01/2021, free -
Calculating ‘reasonable’ and ‘immediate’ needs in MPS applications: Rattan v Kuwad [2021] EWCA Civ 1
The Court of Appeal considered how a court should assess reasonable and immediate needs when faced with an application for maintenance pending suit. News, 14/01/2021, free -
Farming & White v White 20 years on.
Recording of webinar first broadcast on Tuesday 12th January 2021. Webcast, 13/01/2021, free -
UK-EU cross-border family law disputes
Latest government guidance. News, 13/01/2021, free -
UK-EU cross-border maintenance disputes
Latest government guidance. News, 13/01/2021, free -
UK-EU cross-border divorces
Latest government guidance. News, 13/01/2021, free
