Financial Remedies – Next Steps on the Road to Reform?

On 18 December 2024 the Law Commission published its Scoping Report on financial remedies on divorce and dissolution. The Scoping Report sets out their findings that the current law does not provide a cohesive framework in which couples going through a divorce can expect fair and sufficiently certain outcomes.

• Journal

• Reform
• Maintenance
• Conduct
• Law Commission
• Pensions
• Nuptial Agreements
• Financial Remedies

• Professor Nick Hopkins
• Professor Thérèse Callus
• Christine Gentry

!18/03/2025 06:00

Principles vs Resources: Conduct and the Law Commission Scoping Report

The Law Commission’s long awaited scoping report on financial remedies was published on 18 December 2024. It concludes that the law relating to financial remedy should be reformed. We asked the Law Commission to clarify whether their concerns in respect of the fairness of the outcomes was restricted to litigants who had experienced domestic abuse in their marriage.

• Journal

• Conduct
• Law Commission

• Samantha Hillas KC
• Anita Mehta
• Olivia Piercy

!18/03/2025 06:00

Domestic Abuse, Nuptial Agreements and Financial Remedies: A Cultural Shift?

As family practitioners will know, the dynamics involved in negotiating nuptial agreements are no less nuanced than those in other parts of our work. There can be power imbalances, cultural clashes and differing perceptions of fairness.

• Journal

• Domestic Abuse
• Conduct
• Nuptial Agreements

• Polly Calver
• Joanne Edwards

!18/03/2025 06:00

Mary-Jane Grace and Ian Douglas Grace [2025] EWFC 37 (B)10 January 2025

HHJ Farquhar. Straightforward financial remedy proceedings continued an additional 2½ years after the agreement at the FDR. Significant litigation misconduct, far beyond acceptable standards, resulting in striking delay and wasted costs orders; criticism also of conduct of W’s solicitor. The judgment provides useful guidance on anonymisation in financial remedy judgments where there is litigation misconduct.

• Cases

• Anonymity and Transparency
• Conduct
• Delay
• Costs
• Litigation Misconduct

• Neive Augustin

Watch | Conduct in Financial Remedy Proceedings7 January 2025

Watch the recording of 'Conduct in Financial Remedy Proceedings' first broadcast on Tuesday 7th January 2025 with speakers Samantha Hillas KC, Nicholas Allen KC (29BR), Nichola Gray KC (1HC), Anita Mehta (4PB), Emma Hitchings (University of Bristol) and Christine Gentry (Law Commission) who analyse the most up to date publications which are set to change the way in which we view conduct in Financial Remedy cases.

• Watch

• Conduct

HKW v CRH [2024] EWFC 358 (B)4 December 2024

DDJ Rose. Final hearing in modest asset case. Court making findings on the validity of H’s purported loans/gifts to the parties’ children. Consideration of the Kimber factors concerning point of cohabitation.

• Cases

• Conduct
• Add-Backs

• Olivia Currie

A v M (No 3) [2024] EWFC 29925 October 2024

Cohen J. Application by H to strike out W’s application to set aside a final order in financial remedies proceedings on the ground of H’s misrepresentation.

• Cases

• Disclosure
• Conduct
• Striking Out Applications
• Setting Aside Orders (Including Barder Applications)

• Olivia Currie

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

N v J [2024] EWFC 18415 July 2024

Peel J’s view is that it is unlikely that domestic abuse would have a material impact on the vast majority of financial remedy cases, such that it would need to be litigated. Peel J uses the case of N v J to address the interplay between domestic abuse and conduct in the context of financial remedy proceedings.

• Cases

• Conduct
• Civil Partnerships

• Elizabeth Bowden

Is the Current Approach to ‘Conduct’ in Financial Remedy Proceedings in Need of Reform?

The significance and role of marital misconduct in proceedings for financial relief on divorce has had a long and varied history in family law. This article explores that history and the evolving significance of conduct within the litigation process and poses the question whether the current approach to conduct under s 25(2)(g) Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 is in need of reassessment.

• Journal

• Conduct

• Femi Ogunlende

!04/10/2024 08:00