I have already written about the Court of Appeal’s recent decision in the Marco Pierre White case. Divorce, Full Disclosure and Marco Pierre White looked at the Hildebrand Rules and at what can happen when clients take matters into their own hands. Hildebrand Documents and Marco Pierre White examined the judgment in detail. Frances Gibb, Legal Editor of The Times, contacted me about this significant ruling to ask about its implications for family law practitioners. The story appears on page three of today’s newspaper:

Marco Pierre White challenge could change divorce battles for ever

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.

White recently won a landmark ruling that enables him to proceed against Withers, the City law firm that was acting for his estranged wife, Mati, over the interception and seizure of his personal papers. The action is expected to come to trial this year and has already prompted enquiries from clients who think that they may be able to lodge similar claims.

Lawyers say that any spouse who wants to do her own detective work because she suspects that her husband is lying about his finances will lose a crucial weapon if White wins the case. They are calling for urgent guidelines so that they and their clients know where they stand. Continue reading»

As we bid farewell to the Noughties, I pose the question: which case of the past decade has had the greatest implications for family law and its practitioners?

For me it is White v White: the decision of the House of Lords, delivered in 2000. This was when the concept of equal sharing became the accepted starting point (and usually the finishing point) for financial settlements between a wealthy divorcing couple, irrespective of one party’s role as the bread winner and the other party’s role as the homemaker. Gone was the entitlement of the breadwinner (usually the husband) to retain the lion’s share of the family wealth. The court made it clear that no distinction was to be made.

That decision is now ten years old. With the benefit of hindsight, has White v White unwittingly accelerated the decline of marriage in English society? In short, was it the right decision for our society as a whole? It is not a simple question to answer. Continue reading »

As noted in my previous post about Hildebrand Documents, the recent ruling of the Court of Appeal in the Marco Pierre White case alarmed me. I would like to look at the judgment in detail.

I must warn you in advance: this is a lengthy post. However if you are a family law practitioner in England and Wales, are you aware of this judgment’s implications?

It appears to be the case that, even if you have advised a client in accordance with accepted Hildebrand practice in the family law courts, you could still potentially be liable to the opposing spouse in civil law.

I have previously described my experience of a Hildebrand case and the decision that I was called upon to make in a matter of minutes. Would I inspect the three boxes of documents that my client had delivered to our offices, even though I believed that she had obtained the documents illicitly? With the alarm bells ringing, I decided not to do so. Instead, I chose caution.

Lawyers can find themselves sued for damages if documentation taken secretly by their client is copied and used in court, and the client’s spouse takes exception to this. Admittedly such a case may not get off the ground because damage may be too minimal, but in theory at least, lawyers could be liable.

In my case I had every reason to suspect that the Hildebrand Rules, as they are known, had been breached by my client. The generally acceptable defence available under Hildebrand would therefore not apply to her or to me. We could both have been sanctioned and sued by her husband and by his company, which was an entirely separate entity.

Now it may be the case that the generally acceptable defence under Hildebrand does not protect legal practitioners or their clients in any such case at all.   Continue reading »

A couple of recent decisions have caught my eye. Both cases involve divorce and draw upon Article 6 of the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR).

Paraphrased, Article 6 reads as follows.

1.    In the determination of his civil rights and obligations or of any criminal charge against him, everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing within a reasonable time by an independent and impartial tribunal established by law.

2.    Everyone charged with a criminal offence shall be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law.

In Imerman v Tchenguiz and others (2009), EWHC2024, the fabulously wealthy claimant was businessman Vivian Imerman, who is estranged from his wife. He sued his brothers-in-law, the property billionaires Vincent and Robert Tchenguiz, with whom he previously shared business interests.

Mr Imerman claimed that the brothers had downloaded private information from a shared computer system without his authority. He claimed that they had then misused that information, by handing some of it to his wife and her lawyers. The information was deposited with the court after Mr. Imerman began divorce proceedings and will be the subject of a family court hearing in the divorce proceedings later this year.

Did the Tchenguiz brothers have a defence? They thought so. They contended that their actions were taken “in accordance with the administration of justice.” They argued that Mr. Imerman had no intention of making full and frank disclosure, that Mrs Imerman was entitled to “equality of arms” and that her rights under Article 6 required protection. Continue reading »

How healthy is divorce litigation for everyone involved: clients, their families, the lawyers and others? How healthy is it for anyone involved in these cases?

Paranoia is a profound distrust or suspicion of others, which goes hand-in-hand with the belief that one is being persecuted. In divorce, these feelings can have some basis in reality. There may indeed be someone out to get you. Usually, it is the person to whom you had hitherto been closest: your spouse.

Unfortunately, divorce causes some people to become irrational or even delusional. Their perceived “persecutor” is nothing of the sort and may actually be a spouse who wants nothing more than to move on with his or her life.

The painting above is called “Paranoia”. What are the figures in the painting staring at and so worried by? There is no-one visible outside, so what or who do they think may be coming in through the door? Are they right to be worried or are they paranoid? Continue reading »

Every Family Matters, a report prepared for the Conservative Party by Iain Duncan Smith’s ‘Centre for Social Justice’ think tank, received a good deal of press attention at the weekend.

The report recommends a compulsory, three-month “cooling off” period for couples who were set upon divorce. It proposes the founding of “family relationship hubs”: a nationwide network of counselling centres at which families would receive advice before and after marriage. It also recommends that couples who are living together should not be afforded the same legal rights as those who are married, arguing that “healthy marriages build healthy families”.

I read this report from cover to cover – and its conclusions horrified me. I note that my sentiment is shared by others.

Ironically, these proposals are throwbacks to Victorian times – at a time when the Conservative Party is at pains to present itself as modern and progressive!

Women

I have seen the “Victorian Woman” described thus: She was a perfect lady, who did not work, (except for charities); she did not earn (except perhaps for literary and artistic work); she ran her household efficiently, and she found fulfillment bringing up her husband and children. She could have some education, but not much, and avoided involvement in politics or argument with her husband. Continue reading »

John Bolch, solicitor and author of the popular Family Lore blog, invited me to contribute to the latest edition of his Family Lore podcast. This was my first foray into podcasting  – and I enjoyed it! We discussed cohabitation, Mr Justice Coleridge’s views on marriage, the recent Radmacher v Granatino ruling, and more besides.  I would like to thank John for giving me the opportunity to take part.

The result, which is around 25 minutes long, can be found here.

Image credit: ralphbijker.

Earlier this week Sir Paul Coleridge, who sits as a High Court judge in Central London, spoke out about family breakdown. His speech has been widely published: I read about it in the Daily Mail and The Daily Telegraph. He talked about his sadness and frustration at the volume of family breakdowns, with lawyers warning that the family courts are “overstretched to the point of collapse”. He lamented the plight of children caught up in what he described as a game of “Pass the Partner.” The judge called for wide-ranging investigations and new laws to try and stem the tide. His belief is that that marriage, rather than cohabitation is the “gold standard” of relationships.

This speech has been widely commented upon, and I have noticed that responses from members of the public tend to fall into one of two categories. Either they back his views about marriage, or they simply dismiss what he says because they believe that he has failed to move with the times and fails to understand the new types of family that are in existence today.

My own view is straightforward. Continue reading »

I am writing this post from Porto Ercole on the Tuscan coast in Italy. The coastline is rugged and dangerous. The sea is crashing in high waves onto those rocks. The almost vertical mountains along the coast helped deter invaders in Etruscan times. Today Porto Ercole is a luxurious haven for Romans escaping the hustle and bustle of their great city. But for me, Porto Ercole is the place where one of the greatest artists the world has ever known met his death. 

Caravaggio, died on the beach here in 1610, after an ironic period of unlawful imprisonment – given that he had escaped prison before for murder. He died alone suffering from malaria as he rambled senselessly towards the sea. He had known in his short life every type of person: from the poorest to the richest, paupers and princes, he mixed with them all: villains, vagabonds and thieves. He was himself a murderer. Yet, by virtue of his genius, he was capable of depicting intense spirituality in paintings that are at once hauntingly beautiful and terrifying and shocking in their brutality. His severed head of Goliath is a self portrait painted at a time when he was wracked with guilt following the murder. If anyone knew every type of human condition, if anyone felt every type of emotion, and had the gift to show his feelings so nakedly to the world, it was Caravaggio. 

Fast forward to the 21st century and last week in the High Court we saw the human condition, once again at its absolute worst.  Continue reading »

There is a good first person piece in the latest edition of US Esquire magazine. In Do I Love My Wife? An Investigative Report , writer A.J. Jacobs has his brain scanned by a £2 million MRI machine. The aim: to assess his feelings for his wife using the latest findings, techniques and technologies that science (in the form of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York) has to offer.

As the writer explains: “How do I love thee? I love thee with serotonin produced by my raphe Nuclei. I love thee with testosterone receptors deep in my hypothalamus. I love thee with dopamine that floods my primitive lizard brain.

“Actually, I hope I love my wife with all my major brain parts – but who knows? The truth is, I don’t know how I love her. That’s the whole point of today’s experiment.”

The scientists who carry out the experiment believe that love is created by three distinct brain systems: one for sex, one for romance and one for attachment. Each system is affiliated to a different part of the brain. The MRI scanner monitors the activity within each system, by capturing moving images of blood flow in Jacobs’ brain as he looks at his favourite pictures of his wife and thinks about her.

To add a little more spice, the scientists take their experiment one step further and see how his feelings for his wife compare to his feelings for Angelina Jolie. When I read this, I thought that his wife sounded like one brave lady.

The results, when they come back, are interesting. Continue reading »