LAW2021 Online: Family Law (Spring)

This event is now available as a recording and includes:

• A high quality 4 x 1 hour pre-recorded video and audio lectures (topic titles are listed below)
• Q&A – a 1-hour Q&A session with the speakers. “Shape The Debate” is your opportunity to hear our experts answering attendee questions on both the pre-recorded content and general day to day Family Law issues. This session is now recorded and was originally a live broadcast.
• LAW2021 Online: Family Law online Exhibition – you can gain an additional hour of CPD via a choice of webinar from our Webinar Learning Library worth £35 +VAT.

Topics covered include:

Preparing and Running International and Domestic Relocation Cases

Presented by Elissa Da Costa-Waldman MCIArb

Applications by one parent to leave an area to relocate either to another area within the jurisdiction or outside are incredibly difficult emotionally for the clients involved. This course looks at how to make and respond to such applications in a manner which could lead to compromise, based on good and through preparation, as well as consideration of the relevant law informing decision making.

• What are the issues in relocation cases?
  • Internal cases
  • External cases
• General legal principles in such cases
• Preparation for a relocation application
  • Making the application
  • What type of case is it?
• Drafting the applicant parent’s statement and what to cover and exhibit
• Acting for the respondent parent
• The court process in relocation cases

Dealing with Economic Abuse in Financial Remedy Cases

Presented by Elissa Da Costa-Waldman MCIArb

This course will consider the impact of financial abuse on financial remedy cases and how to manage it with a focus on how to protect the person being abused as well as consideration of the preservation of assets and how to ensure a fair outcome within proceedings and steps to take to ensure the abused person is able to fund the application.

• What is economic abuse?
• Consideration of Family Law Act 1996 applications prior to applying for financial remedies.
• Achieving and enforcing proper disclosure
• Section 37 MCA 1973 applications to preserve assets
• The likelihood of a successful application for Legal Services Payment Order
• Reducing opportunities for further financial abuse by careful drafting of orders
• Costs

The proverbial penny drops landing on both sides: Let's talk about pensions

Presented by Jonathan Walker-Kane

Three recent decisions - W v H (divorce financial remedies) [2020] EWFC B10, KM v CV (Pension Apportionment: Needs) [2020] EWFC B22 and RH v SV (Pension Apportionment: Reasons) [2020] EWFC B23 are of significant interest due to the significant lack of reported cases involving pensions on divorce. They are also the first reported judicial treatment of the PAG report. Per His Honour Judge Hess, the PAG report should, 'be treated as being prima facie persuasive in the areas it has analysed, although of course susceptible to judicial oversight and criticism'.

Between the three cases there is to be found an interesting analysis of the court's approach to apportionment/ring-fencing, Lifetime Allowance ('LTA') treatment and offsetting.

Judge Robinson, taking a broad view of pension offsetting, comments in RH v SV that:

'[16] I do not consider that there is anything inherently wrong with aggregating the value of capital and pension assets for the purpose of comparison, provided that it is recognised that this is not a comparison of equal values. Provided it is recognised that the orchard provides different types of fruit it is not wrong to look at the division of the total crop. The continuing income position must also be considered in assessing fairness'.

This lecture shall discuss apportionment, LTA, offsetting and the continuing role of annuities in pension reports.

The War of the Roses and Conduct Unbecoming

Presented by Jonathan Walker-Kane

In proceedings for financial remedies, where there is insufficient time at court to convert heads of agreement into a consent order, the parties may return to the court room and explain to the judge the terms reached. The judge may approve the agreement and make an order in terms of the agreement. Even though the order itself has not been perfected, it is binding. If a dispute arises in the process of turning the agreement into a formal order, the judge can make rulings.

In the recent case of G v C [2020] EWFC B35 (OJ), the judge dismissed a husband and wife’s cross applications to vary a Rose order. The implications of this case are discussed in this lecture along with a thumbnail overview of setting aside and appeals.

In the recent case of RM and TM [2020] EWFC 41, Robert Peel QC, sitting as a Deputy High Court Judge said that the parties had embarked on “ruinous and recriminatory financial remedy proceedings”. The case sought to clarify the area of law surrounding conduct: how it should be considered in the context of section 25(2)(g) of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973. Section 25(2)(g) states that one of the factors the court shall take into account in determining financial proceedings is “the conduct of each of the parties if that conduct is such that it would in the opinion of the court be inequitable to disregard it”.

“This case makes clear that spouses cannot raise allegations of ‘conduct’ in the hope of somehow persuading a judge to take against their spouse/or colour the judge’s views – something which is all too often being attempted and in particular by Litigants in Person.

This lecture addresses how cases of conduct should be approach and how they might be resisted.