ONE of Britain’s leading family lawyers, Baroness Deech, says that assets built up before a marriage should be excluded from divorce settlements.
Deech, the chairwoman of the Bar Standards Board, said the country should adopt European-style divorce laws to bring an end to bitter and expensive legal battles and to deter “gold diggers” from marrying for money.
Under the proposed overhaul, only assets — including cash and property —acquired during the marriage would be subject to the divorce settlement.
A former City banker turned biotechnology researcher faces financial ruin if his former wife wins her battle to bind him to a prenuptial contract, the Supreme Court was told yesterday.
Nicolas Granatino is challenging his £1 million divorce settlement with Katrin Radmacher, a German heiress said to be worth £100 million.
The case before nine Supreme Court justices will determine if divorcing couples in England and Wales should be bound by pre-marriage agreements on how their assets will be split.
Take one celebrity chef, separate him from his wife, sprinkle with allegations of intercepted letters, simmer and serve with a landmark ruling.
Marco Pierre White, the former Michelin-starred chef and television presenter, is pursuing his estranged wife’s lawyers in a test case that could change for ever the way that divorce battles are fought. Family lawyers warn that the chef’s lawsuit could end the practice by spouses of turning detective to unearth evidence.
Two million unmarried couples need new legal rights to protect them from injustice if they separate, the new senior judge in charge of law reform has said.
In many cases long-term partners cannot be adequately protected by existing laws, according to Lord Justice Munby, chairman of the Law Commission. It was time that the law was brought up to date with changes in society. “It is a fact that the number of people marrying today is less than it has been for over 100 years,” he said.
former chairman of ICI has won a court battle to evict his ex-wife from their “super-prime” £14 million Chelsea home so that he can sell it.
The Court of Appeal accepted that Charles Miller Smith was “haemorrhaging money” on the southwest London property and could not be expected to keep up monthly mortgage payments of £27,000.
The three judges gave Debjani Miller Smith, 44, three months to leave the home in Egerton Terrace that she jointly owned with her former husband.
A British woman left almost penniless by divorce goes to the Supreme Court this week in a case that will test London’s reputation as the divorce capital of the world.
Sikirat Agbaje, 68, is challenging a divorce award made in her native Nigeria and upheld by the Court of Appeal in London that left her with just under £7,000.
Her former husband, Olusola, 71, a barrister to whom she was married for 40 years, took £616,000, including two properties in London.
A woman at the centre of a £400 million divorce case has been given six weeks to leave her home.
Michelle Young told Central London County Court yesterday that her estranged husband, the property tycoon Scot Young, said that the rent had been paid until December. However, the court heard that no rent was paid and since July 23 this year she owed £24,000 for the property in Regent’s Park Terrace, London.
A businessman ordered by a court to explain the disappearance of his alleged £400 million fortune after his wife filed for divorce may have faked a mental breakdown to escape jail, the High Court was told yesterday.
Scot Young had been ordered to provide full disclosure of his finances or be sent to prison for six months. That deadline expired on September 7 without Mr Young giving the information required.
A former investment banker has succeeded in winning a bigger divorce settlement after appealing against a ruling in which his wife was awarded 65 per cent of their joint assets.
A former investment banker has succeeded in winning a bigger divorce settlement after appealing against a ruling in which his wife was awarded 65 per cent of their joint assets.