Chair’s Column (Spring 2023)

After a successful opening year in 2022, the Financial Remedies Journal (FRJ) now enters its second year and continues to provide a wealth of information and debate on the big subjects topical in the financial remedies world and I commend this edition of…

• Journal

• HHJ Edward Hess | Chair of the Editorial Board

!02/03/2023 09:41

Omissions, Ambiguities and Deficiencies – Seeking Clarification of a Judge’s Reasoning

‘All judgments are capable of improvement’ observed Peter Jackson LJ in Re O (A Child: Judgment: Adequacy of Reasons) [2021] EWCA Civ 149 at [70]. As a consequence, the appropriate scope of seeking ‘clarification’ of a draft judgme…

• Journal

• Nicholas Allen KC

!27/03/2023 09:08

An Unwelcome Guest and a ‘lively controversy’ – Guest v Guest on the Essential Aim of Proprietary Estoppel

‘1. “One day my son, all this will be yours”. Spoken by a farmer to his son when in his teens, and repeated for many years thereafter. Relying on that promise of inheritance from his father, the son spends the best part of his working li…

• Journal

• Charlotte John

!27/03/2023 09:09

Looking Back at Duxbury 30 Years On

The Duxbury formula seeks to ascertain a capital amount which if invested to achieve capital growth and income yield (both at assumed rates and after tax on the yield and required gains) could be drawn down in equal inflation-proofed instalments over a period of time (often the recipient’s life expectancy) but would be completely exhausted at the end of the period.

• Journal

• Michael Allum
• Megan Jenkins
• Amy Gilbert

!27/03/2023 09:12

Pensions on Divorce – Lifetime Allowance Tax Issues

A favourite film of one of the authors is Apollo 13. At one point, whilst trying to work out what had to happen to get the ill-fated space craft home, Commander Jim Lovell said: ‘All right, there’s a thousand things that have to happen in orde…

• Journal

• Lifetime Allowance Tax
• Pensions on Divorce
• LTA
• HMRC Protection

• George Mathieson
• Peter Turnbull

!27/03/2023 09:14

Cryptocurrency and the Family Courts – Some International Experiences

Millions of people around the globe have funds in cryptocurrencies, with billions of dollars now invested. The nature of these funds is invariably secretive and non-national based. They present distinctive challenges for family courts around the world in ascertaining what are the overall assets in order to produce a fair outcome.

• Journal

• Crypto

• Prof David Hodson OBE KC(Hons) MCIArb

!26/01/2023 14:43

Clarke v Clarke – A Brave New (Valuation) World

Business valuers are often asked to estimate the value of interests in companies that do not represent the entirety of the company’s share capital. In those cases, the application of an appropriate valuation discount, which accurately reflects the attributes of a subject shareholding can be both a contentious and material issue, with the size (and application) of the assessed discount potentially having a large effect on the overall valuation of an individual’s interest.

• Journal

• SJE
• Valuations
• Forensic Accountants
• Experts
• Discounts

• Thomas Rodwell

!27/03/2023 09:16

Depletion of Business Profits and Assets During Separation and Divorce Proceedings – Would it Have Happened Anyway?

This article is written from the perspective of the business valuation expert. We often see business profits and assets deplete over the period of separation and during divorce proceedings. The question is to what extent this can/could have been controlled by the business owner (and usually shareholder/director in owner-managed businesses) and what was due to circumstances outside their control. Would the depletion of assets and profits have happened anyway if not for the divorce?

• Journal

• Business Valuation
• divorce
• Experts
• Disclosure
• Assets
• Valuations

• Hollie Edwards-Davies

!27/03/2023 09:17

Reflections on Being a LASPO Reviewer for Advocate

I became a reviewer for Advocate, then the Bar Pro Bono Unit, within days of the advent of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (LASPO). Earlier in my career in 2002, Martin Pointer KC and I had launched a full-scale assault on H…

• Journal

• Justin Warshaw KC

!27/03/2023 09:29

Ten Years on from LASPO – An On-the-Ground Perspective from Support Through Court

We empower litigants in personEvery year, thousands of people in the United Kingdom face court alone. Often through no choice of their own, they must represent themselves at a moment that could determine the rest of their life. They may face divorce, evic…

• Journal

• Esther Elshen

!27/03/2023 09:30

The Impact of LASPO on Access to Justice – A View from Law for Life

This year will see the 10th anniversary of the implementation of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (LASPO).In 2017, the Law Society reviewed the impact of the changes introduced in 2013 and found:legal aid is no longer availab…

• Journal

• Advicenow
• Access to Justice
• LASPO
• Legal Information
• Law for Life
• Litigants in Person

• Beth Kirkland

!27/03/2023 09:40

The Interplay Between Welfare Benefits and Financial Remedy Orders – A Practitioner’s View

It is now 10 years since the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (LASPO) came into force. Reflecting back, the obvious impact on my firm’s practice has been the reduction in the number of financial remedy cases we deal with wh…

• Journal

• State Benefits
• Low Income Cases
• Universal Credit

• Lucy Mead

!27/03/2023 09:41

An Overview of the Benefits System

Lloyd George, determined to ‘lift the shadow of the workhouse from the homes of the poor’, sought to provide a guaranteed income to the old and infirm.All wage-earners contributed to a health scheme, in return for benefits.Sounds simple. But w…

• Journal

• Non-Means Tested
• Universal Credit
• Means Tested
• Welfare Benefits

• DJ Debbie Stringer
• Ian Besford

!27/03/2023 09:44

Fair Shares? Sorting Out Money and Property on Divorce

For the 100,000 couples who divorce annually in England and Wales, the financial arrangements they make can determine the future standard of living that they and their children will have. Yet, only a third of them use the legal system to reach a financial settlement, with the remaining two-thirds negotiating their own arrangements or, worse, reaching no settlement at all. Despite numerous calls to reform the law on this issue, very little is known about the detail of how couples negotiate settlements, or of how these work out.

• Journal

• Property
• divorce

• Emma Hitchings
• Caroline Bryson
• Professor Gillian Douglas
• Dr Susan Purdon
• Dr Jenny Birchall

!27/03/2023 09:45

Litigation Funding – A Brief Overview

Funding family law litigation is a complex process. It should be seen in the context of most family law proceedings operating on the basis of each party paying their own legal costs, with costs orders rarely being available save for litigation misconduct.…

• Journal

• Tony Roe

!27/03/2023 09:49

DR Corner: The Drive for Gender Diversity in Private FDRs

Pressures on court time and the increasing use of remote courts over the COVID-19 pandemic have led to the increasing popularity and success of Private FDRs within (and instead of) financial remedy proceedings within the last 5 years.A Private FDR is a &l…

• Journal

• Efficient Conduct
• FDRs
• Financial Remedies Court (FRC)
• Financial Remedies
• First Appointments
• arbitration
• divorce
• Alternative Dispute Resolution
• DR Corner
• Private FDR
• Unconscious Bias
• Diversity

• Sarah Green

!27/03/2023 09:50

Tech Corner: Choosing Tech that Will Transform the Way You Work

Non-essential office tech that can transform your work. How to sort the tech needs from the tech thneeds.The Lorax, you’ll know exactly what I mean, if not: ‘A thing that is not required yet is purchased in great amounts anyways’ (www.ur…

• Journal

• Productivity
• Efficiency
• Tech Corner
• Making Sense of Documents
• Workflow

• Jim Hitch

!27/03/2023 09:51

Money Corner: Did the 2022 Permacrisis Reduce Your Client’s Pension Credit?

2022, a year that we all hoped would usher in a return to normal following the COVID-19 pandemic, turned out to be full of seismic shifts, and it was certainly a stark reminder that the value of investments can go down as well as up. Investors had to face…

• Journal

• Money Corner

• Lucy Taylor
• Julian Whight

!27/03/2023 09:52

Book Review: Quiet Revolutionaries

Dr Andy Hayward reviews Quiet Revolutionaries: The Married Women’s Association and Family Law, by Sharon Thompson (Hart Publishing, 2022).

• Journal

• Book Review

• Dr Andy Hayward

!27/03/2023 09:54

Financial Remedies Case Round-Up: October to December 2022

A sad tale’s best for winter, so we start with October’s Supreme Court decision in Guest v Guest [2022] UKSC 27. As with other leading estoppel cases, it concerned a farm and a promise of inheritance, in reliance on which the claimant undertoo…

• Journal

• Polly Morgan | Case Editor

!27/03/2023 09:55

The Summary of the Summaries (Spring 2023)

We have summarised the following cases on the Financial Remedies Journal website since the last issue went to press, and now present these as a summary of summaries. Visit the ‘Cases’ tab on the website to search a compendious back catalogue o…

• Journal

• Henry Pritchard

!27/03/2023 09:57

Interview with Sir Mathew Thorpe

Sir Mathew Thorpe, Barrister from 1961, in silk from 1980, Family Division Judge (1988–95), Lord Justice of Appeal (1995–2013) and Deputy Head of Family Justice and Head of International Family Justice (2005–13). Sir Mathew was interview…

• Journal

• Interview

• Sir Mathew Thorpe
• HHJ Edward Hess | Chair of the Editorial Board
• Nicholas Allen KC

!27/03/2023 11:03