Important Recent Case Developments (mid-May 2025 to mid-September 2025)

These are the noteworthy case-law developments since the last issue went to press in May 2025. In addition to our two principal ‘big cases’, there are several other judgments that make useful points.

The decision in Standish

When it came, the Supreme Court decision in Standish v Standish [2025] UKSC 26 was short and to the point.

The sharing principle applies to matrimonial assets but not non-matrimonial assets. While equal sharing of matrimonial assets is the ‘appropriate and principled starting position’, there may be justified departures from that. In particular, both need and (to the extent that it is utilised) the compensation principle can dictate a departure from equal sharing.

Non-matrimonial property can indeed become matrimonialised. This ‘rests on the parties, over time, treating the asset as shared’. This period of time must be sufficiently long for the parties’ treatment of the asset as shared to be regarded as settled.

It is therefore a factual enquiry as to whether matrimonialisation has occurred. As Calum Smith suggested in an FRJ blog, ‘Final Reflections on Standish: Was It All Worthwhile?’ (9 July 2025):

‘Mingling will be relevant, but it is not the sole or dominant indicator of matrimonialisation. There must be more. There must be an acceptance by the contributing party, inferred from how the property has been used, that it is to be shared with the other spouse. The determination will follow a holistic assessment, of all the relevant factors, of which mingling may be one.’

It is not always sensible or consistent with the overriding objective to argue about this. In many cases the distinction between matrimonial and non-matrimonial is moot because meeting the parties’ needs requires all assets to be included.

Disclosure in nuptial agreements

In its decision in Radmacher v Granatino [2010] UKSC 42, the Supreme Court considered the weight to be given to a nuptial agreement as part of section 25 Matrimonial Causes Act 1973’s requirement that courts consider ‘all the circumstances’. Among other aspects, the court considered: (1) financial disclosure; and (2) whether the agreement was vitiated on normal contractual principles. In Helliwell v Entwistle [2025] EWCA Civ 1055 the Court of Appeal considered these two points further.

Radmacher said that full financial disclosure was not necessary provided that the parties had all information that was material to their decision to enter into the agreement on those terms. In Radmacher there was very little disclosure; the husband was indifferent to it and knew that the wife was very wealthy and could meet any claim. The parties had not agreed to full disclosure, and the wife had not dishonestly failed to disclose any assets.

In contrast, the agreement in Helliwell v Entwistle specifically recorded that the parties had received full disclosure and that this disclosure was substantially complete. In doing so, they had established that this was the level of disclosure they considered material to the decision to enter into an agreement.

In the event, the wife deliberately failed to include a number of assets in her name, totalling about 73% of her wealth. This was fraudulent non-disclosure and misrepresentation, both contract-vitiating factors. The wife was unable to provide clear and cogent evidence sufficient to rebut the strong presumption that her false representations had induced the husband to enter into the agreement.

The take-away here is to ensure that whatever level of disclosure you consider material in the context of the case, it must be truthful.

However, the FRJ website contains a blog from Sir Nicholas Mostyn (‘Helliwell v Entwistle: Some Troubling Aspects’, 8 August 2025) criticising the decision and, in particular, whether the wife’s non-disclosure played a material part in the decision made by the husband to enter into the decision. This, he argues, was an issue on which the first instance judge had made no findings, and which has not been remitted back.

An application for permission to appeal has been filed with the Supreme Court (application number UKSC/2025/0163), although we do not yet know on what grounds. Watch this space.

Shared care and the Child Maintenance Service

In our case summaries for the FRJ website, we have adopted the practice of identifying whether or not the case is citable authority. A summary of the principles relating to citation of authorities can be found there too.

OS v DT [2025] EWFC 156 (B), a decision of HHJ Hess, is certified as citable on the issue of the residual jurisdiction of the court in relation to child maintenance. As you may know, where there is more-or-less equal shared care, in which the non-resident parent has in excess of 174 nights per year, maintenance is payable, albeit heavily discounted.

However, reg 50 Child Support Maintenance Calculation Regulations 2012 (SI 2012/2677) refers to situations in which the non-resident parent is providing ‘day to day care to a lesser extent than the applicant’. Where there is exactly equal day-to-day care, it follows that neither parent is providing lesser care than the other, and accordingly there is no non-resident parent against whom an assessment can be made. The courts retain jurisdiction because the CMS has none.

While you could first make an application to the CMS to get it to actively say it has no jurisdiction, OS v DT says you could just go straight to court (via non-court dispute resolution, naturally). For more on this topic, there is an interesting blog post by James Pirrie, ‘Child Support, Sharing Care and the Problems in Top Up Orders (Out into the Open at Last)’ (28 August 2025) on the FRJ website.

FDR privilege

Peel J’s decision in BC v BC [2025] EWFC 236 provides clarity about the extent of FDR privilege. The husband referred in his open offer to the wife’s ‘retrograde decision to leave the building yesterday, not thirty minutes after receiving [the private FDR evaluator’s] written indication’. Was the suggestion that the wife did not engage in negotiations at the FDR a privileged one? Yes, said Peel J. The court can know whether a private FDR has taken place, whether both parties attended, who the evaluator was and the parties’ legal teams, and the location and length of the event. Anything else, including whether or not offers were made and an indication given, was not permitted. The Financial Remedies Court Primary Principles document of 11 January 2022 went too far in saying otherwise.

FRJ case collections

Some cases are notable simply because they rival Jarndyce v Jarndyce in the number of judgments produced, and others because they attract a great deal of commentary. We have begun to collate these on the FRJ website as ‘collections’ which contain, in order, all the reported judgments in a given case and our articles and blog posts on it. You will find these in the search box either by searching ‘collections’ or the name of the case you need. This is an easy way for you to keep track of long-running or important cases. See, for example, those for Standish v Standish, Potanin v Potanina, SM v BA and Collardeau-Fuchs v Fuchs.

The case summary team

We now have some fifty case summarisers who prepare the summaries of every financial remedy case and every case that might contain a point relevant to the financial remedies practitioner. They are not all active at any one time and they fit the summarising work in around their multiple other commitments. I should like to use this column to say thank you to them for their work, and their good humour. We are always open to new summarisers and there is guidance on the FRJ website at https://financialremediesjournal.com/guide-to-writing-case-summaries/ to help you determine whether you might be eligible.

This article draws on the case summaries prepared by the FRJ summariser team.