Sophie Groves and Valeria Gampl consider the impact of non-financial conduct in financial proceedings Despite the statutory provision naming conduct as one of the factors the court takes into account, the reality of arguing non-financial conduct successfully remains reserved to cases of truly exceptional circumstances. Family law practitioners are often faced with difficulties in managing …
Continue reading "Conduct: In the extreme"
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Wills & Trusts Law Reports | Winter 2020 #181The claimants as trustees of the Allendale 1949 Settlement applied to extend their administrative powers under s57 of the Trustee Act 1925 and the inherent jurisdiction of the court to include a power to re-appropriate assets between the various sub-funds comprised in the settlement, on the ground that they lacked the power under the settlement and it would be expedient for them to have such power in order to effect a certain tax mitigation strategy.
The claimants further applied for other administrative powers which they lacked to be conferred on them, even thou...
Rachel Freeman examines the impact of conduct within financial remedy proceedings and how revised costs provisions have added to the pressure to negotiate reasonably That a spouse’s bad behaviour will be disregarded in the financial settlement is already a bitter pill for some clients to swallow, yet now they are under more pressure to come …
Continue reading "Conduct: Changing the blame game?"
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Wills & Trusts Law Reports | Summer 2019 #175The claimants had applied to remove the 1st to 5th defendants as trustees, and the 6th defendant as protector, of a settlement which owned shares in the family company, and for a relief as to the disputed issue of preference shares in the company. The preference shares question was settled during the trial of a preliminary issue, on terms that the claimants’ costs were paid. The trustees and protector all resigned before trial of the removal application. The claimants applied for their costs on the basis that they had achieved the result they sought. The 1st to 4th defendants contended t...
Elizabeth Simos looks at issues of conduct and non-disclosure, and the impact where adverse inferences are drawn in needs cases ‘Arguments as to add-backs essentially come down to issues of conduct, namely conduct that it would, in the opinion of the court, be inequitable to disregard.’ Much to the dismay of ‘wronged’ spouses in England …
Continue reading "Conduct: Balancing the scales"
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Simon Fisher looks at arguments in favour of an add-back in a case also concerned with fabricated liabilities ‘When making a decision on an add-back, the court must identify a wanton dissipation.’ In R v K [2018] Baker J looked at the issue of add-backs and alleged fabricated liabilities in a financial remedy case. The …
Continue reading "Conduct: Reclaiming assets"
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In the second of two articles, Suzanne Chalmers and Jack Macaulay report on dishonesty in the presentation of a claim ‘Claims that are entirely concocted are legally straightforward – if the truth is discovered, the claim will fail; if not, it will succeed. The law has had more difficulty in responding to claims where there …
Continue reading "Conduct: Lying to the court"
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Natasha Kurth suggests that arguments as to conduct should be rare in financial proceedings, and approached with caution ‘In R v B each party accepted that the conduct allegations raised could amount to conduct that it would be inequitable to disregard, but denied that the factual position justified such a finding in this case.’ The …
Continue reading "Conduct: The blame game"
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Rachel Wilmott highlights the courts’ approach when dealing with financial conduct and litigation conduct ‘There is no formulaic or accurate weighing mechanism for determining how the respective misconduct of the parties should be reflected in any order for costs.’ The decision in US v SR [2014] addresses at length the law on notional reattribution and …
Continue reading "Conduct: The blame game"
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Martin Meredith analyses a recent ECJ decision on the role of in-house lawyers ‘The ECJ reinforced the Akzo reasoning that a lawyer’s independence can be determined positively – by reference to professional obligations – but also negatively by reference to the absence of an employment relationship.’ The decision of Prezes Urzedu Komunikacji Elekronicnej & Republic …
Continue reading "Conduct: Independent thinking"
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