NCDR Update – Are the Tides Turning for Failing to Mediate?

Looking back over the last 12 months, 29 April 2024 was an important day for financial remedy practitioners. This was the date the rules concerning NCDR changed. The changes make ignoring the NCDR options a costs hazard. It seemed inevitable that costs orders would follow.

• Blog

• Leah Thomas
• Rhian Jones

!20/05/2025 12:05

DSD v MJW (Costs of MPS) [2025] EWFC 119 (B)24 April 2025

DDJ David Hodson. Proportionality and maintenance pending suit (MPS), a cautionary tale. In this case the DDJ concluded that the game was very much not worth the candle, and the application turned out to be very costly for the applicant wife.

• Cases

• Interim Relief
• Maintenance Pending Suit

• Elizabeth Bowden

Standish v Standish [2024] EWCA Civ 56723 May 2024

Landmark decision where Court of Appeal reduces W’s award by £20 million. Lord Justice Moylan, Lady Justice King and Lord Justice Phillips.

• Cases

• Matrimonial and Non-Matrimonial Property
• Sharing
• Gifts
• Matrimonialisation
• Tax
• Autonomy
• Trusts

• Sophia Paraskeva

SM v BA (No 2: Maintenance Pending Suit) [2025] EWFC 2819 February 2025

Nicholas Allen KC, sitting as a deputy High Court judge. Application to increase maintenance pending suit (MPS) in ‘super-rich’ financial remedies case.

• Cases

• Interim Relief
• Maintenance Pending Suit
• Costs
• Legal Services Payment Orders

• Abigail Clements-Bewley

They Think It’s All Over… It Is Not! Express Declarations, Subsequent Agreements and the Decision in Re Cynberg

In Stack v Dowden [2007] UKHL 17, at [49], Baroness Hale said that ‘[n]o-one now doubts that … an express declaration [of trust] is conclusive unless varied by subsequent agreement or affected by proprietary estoppel’. In Re Cynberg [2024] EWHC 2164 (Ch), James Pickering KC dismissed the appeal of two trustees in bankruptcy.

• Blog

• Stack
• Declarations of Trust
• Estoppel
• Trusts

• Andrew Day
• Jacob Gifford Head

!09/09/2024 14:54