Open Offers: Achieving More or Seeking Less

The obligation on parties to negotiate openly and reasonably within financial remedy proceedings – and the consequences of not doing so – are well known. They were perhaps set out most clearly in OG v AG [2021] 1 FLR 1105 per Mostyn J.

• Blog

• Open Offers
• Negotiations

• Rebecca Cross
• Alyssa Callaway

!04/11/2024 09:19

The Autumn 2024 Budget: A Summary of the Key Reforms for Financial Remedy Practitioners

In the Autumn Budget 2024 Rachel Reeves, our first female Chancellor of the Exchequer, set out arguably the biggest tax changes for a generation, set to raise taxes by £41bn by 2029/30 and said to be part of the Government’s plan to revitalise Britain. This article summarises the key reforms of the Budget, highlighting those which may be of particular relevance to financial remedy practitioners and their clients.

• Blog

• Jennifer Lee
• Roger Isaacs

!01/11/2024 14:58

Abigail Laura Williams v Andrew John Williams [2024] EWFC 2756 August 2024

Final order of Moor J in financial remedy proceedings involving a husband who had continually breached court orders, failed to attend hearings, and provided unreliable and ‘demonstrably untrue’ evidence.

• Cases

• Non-Disclosure
• Adverse Inferences
• Freezing Injunctions
• Conduct
• Legal Services Payment Orders
• Disclosure from Third Parties

• Jemima Kearney

JL v NN [2024] EWHC 148925 April 2024

Williams J allowed W’s appeal on the basis that the judge failed to explicitly evaluate critical evidence and reach clear conclusions. Williams J confirmed that the civil standard of proof for fraud and dishonesty in the Financial Remedies Court is subject to the same balance of probabilities standard as any other factual issue, even if fraud issues should not be pleaded without an evidential basis.

• Cases

• Dishonesty
• Burden Of Proof
• Housing Need
• Fraud
• Appeals

• Elizabeth Bowden

Mainwaring v Bailey [2024] EWHC 2614 (Fam)16 October 2024

Henke J ordered the husband to pay the wife’s costs assessed on a standard basis following his ‘hopeless appeal’. In response to the husband’s plea that he should be treated as a litigant-in-person and he did not understand the Family Procedure Rules, Henke J was emphatic that litigants in person are expected to comply with the procedural rules as much as represented parties.

• Cases

• Costs
• Appeals

• Jasmine Knapman