Isn’t summer supposed to be a quiet time?  Frank Arndt, who heads Stowe Family Law’s international family law department, seems to be busier than ever – and not just because his team has recently been instructed in some very interesting new cases.

When the second wife of Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky was granted a “quickie divorce” at the High Court last week, Frank was contacted by a number of journalists for expert comment and analysis. His comments, about the Berezovsky case and also about the UK’s much vaunted reputation as the “divorce capital of the world”, have since appeared as far afield as Russia and Australia!

Divorce tourists face judicial rethink

Frank Arndt, head of international practice at Stowe Family Law, said: “There is a perception that wives can achieve a fairer settlement in England and importantly there are obligations here for full and frank disclosure of assets belonging to one party, which there may not be in some countries. Often husbands see divorce as a business deal and look at which jurisdiction is best.” Continue reading»

Boris Berezovsky’s wife granted “quickie divorce”

Frank Arndt, a lawyer at Stowe Family Law, which specialises in big money divorces, said: ”The Berezovskys were married for 18 years, have two teenage children and, although estimates of the couple’s fortune vary, it is indeed likely that any settlement eventually awarded to Mrs Berezovsky will dwarf the £48 million awarded to Beverley Charman in 2008.” Continue reading»

London seals reputation as divorce capital as oligarch faces £100 million payout to ex-wife

[Frank] Arndt said Berezovsky may use what is known in the legal profession as the “stellar or genius” argument used by Charman, in which he said his wife had made no financial contribution to the fortune he had built up in the insurance market during their marriage. His case resulted in a discount from the 50:50 position: a high court judge ruled Charman should have 63.5% of the couple’s wealth rather than half because of his special contribution to building it up and because the assets he was keeping were riskier than those which went to his wife.” Continue reading»

Frank Arndt, the Head of our International Family Law Unit at Stowe Family Law, recently attended an international family law conference in Malaga, Spain. While he was there, Frank was interviewed by the editor of Sur in English – one of that region’s most popular English language publications – about expat divorce and “forum shopping”. The feature appears in today’s print edition.

SPOUSES WHO GO FORUM SHOPPING FOR DIVORCE

By Liz Parry

If you think your marriage may be on the rocks, think twice about moving to another country, says Frank Arndt

It is well known that two of the most stressful things in life are getting divorced, and moving house.

When the move is to a different country to start a new life in the sun with your partner, though, it seems reasonable to think that at least it is only the stress of moving you are going to face, and divorce is unlikely to be on the cards in the near future. But is this so? According to Frank Arndt, who was in Malaga last week for a meeting of Spanish and British lawyers, all may not be as it seems.

Frank, who works for the Stowe Family Law firm in the UK, specialises in transnational family litigation. Because laws and procedures vary so much from one country to another, some of the more wily would-be litigants, including those who are intent on getting divorced, are going “forum shopping” – filing the case in the jurisdiction most likely to find in their favour and getting a head start on the unsuspecting party. By way of illustration he describes the case of a wealthy man who lured his wife and children to live in South Africa and then divorced her and returned to the UK leaving her stranded thousands of miles away, with children who could not be moved. Continue reading »

It was more than a year ago when I first blogged about Agbaje v Agbaje. (See: London is the “divorce capital of the world”? Think again!) This drawn-out case involves a couple who married in 1967, gained British citizenship, separated in 1999 and divorced in Nigeria.

Had the case been heard in England, Mrs Agbaje would have received at least half of the couple’s assets. As it was a Nigerian court left her virtually penniless, with her former husband retaining assets worth £616,000. The case has been in and out of our courts for years now, with Mrs Agbaje seeking a fairer settlement here in England.

Today the Supreme Court ruled in her favour – and I was delighted. So when journalists contacted me for comment, I didn’t exactly mince my words (below). UPDATE: Mrs Agbaje’s peerless Queen’s Counsel, Nigel Dyer QC, tells me that the Supreme Court ruled 5-0 in her favour.

I don’t necessarily share the same opinions about matrimonial jurisprudence as Frank Arndt, Head of our International Law department, who was quoted in The Lawyer. We hail from differing backgrounds: mine is rooted in the common law with discretion as its key, whereas German family law is strict and codified. And the difference in our approach actually works well in the office, where we can advise clients from differing perspectives.

Incidentally, I have never been keen on the description of London as the “world’s divorce capital”. Even though Stowe Family Law is opening a new London office, I feel obliged to point out that good settlements aren’t curtailed by the M25!

Nigeria divorce judgment attracts attention

By Jane Croft

Law Courts Correspondent

The Supreme Court reinforced London’s reputation as “divorce capital of the world” after it found in favour of a Nigerian woman who took her case to the UK courts after disputing the divorce settlement she was awarded by a Nigerian court .

Family lawyers said the keenly watched judgment could open the floodgates for wealthy spouses in “big money” divorce cases who are unhappy with divorce awards made by overseas courts to seek a bigger payout in the UK.

London has been dubbed ”divorce capital of the world” because recent changes in the law meant wives are now favoured in big money break-ups.

The Supreme Court ruled that Sikirat Agbaje had not received an adequate financial settlement from her barrister husband when the couple divorced in Lagos in 2003 after 38 years of marriage. Continue reading»

If you have hidden your treasure in a “haven”: beware!

Tomorrow, the leaders of the world’s 20 largest economies meet in London to discuss the state of the global economy.

High on their agenda will be the issue of offshore tax havens. On the face of it, this is an issue for accountants, not family lawyers. Offshore accounts are favoured by the wealthy as a way of avoiding higher tax levels and, in some cases, masking outright tax evasion.

My previous post on divorce and tax havens described several governments’ purchase of data stolen from LGT Group, a bank owned by the Royal Family of Liechtenstein.

It is difficult to give any reliable figure on how much money is held in tax havens such as this one, but estimates of the value of assets held offshore range from US$1.7 trillion to US$11.5 trillion. A recent report by the United States Senate estimated that American tax authorities could be losing some US$100 billion in annual tax revenues due to offshore tax abuses.

However, there is also an important aspect of family law that should be considered. The secrecy afforded to offshore accounts means that if a marriage does end, it can extremely difficult to quantify the assets to be divided.

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Our transnational work continues to grow- this week on consecutive days, our solicitors, Angela Stephenson and Frank Arndt successfully attended court in London in two separate jurisdiction cases. The whereabouts (or jurisdiction) of a divorce can often impact on the financial settlement between the divorcing couples because differing laws will be applied in different countries.

Our firm’s commitment to working pro bono (free of charge) in complicated cases where funding is not possible, is well known. This was recently applied in a transnational case, where a young mother had struggled to obtain good legal advice and representation to secure her children whom she was forced to leave behind in Germany when she returned to England for cancer treatment.

So I am proud to record the involvement of Frank Arndt, and our firm in this tragic transnational children case.

Frank is a German Rechtsanwalt and Partner in our firm. A fluent English, Dutch and German speaker he heads Stowe Family Law’s International department and is one of the very few family lawyers practising in England who has higher rights of audience in the Federal Court in Germany.  Continue reading »

Stowe Family Law’s head of international family law, Frank Arndt, features in today’s Times Law ‘Water Cooler.’ His comments on proposals to reform EU divorce law highlight a pertinent issue for many of our clients – what to do when you divorce across borders.

From The Times:

Forum-shopping for the best European country for a divorce may become even more complex – with proposals just announced by the UK to harmonise the law affecting the 170,000 couples involved in cross-border EU divorces each year. New draft regulations would allow couples to choose the member state where they want to divorce, if they have other defined links with it, such as place of marriage, usual domicile, nationality or they were last resident there.

The proposal provides for both spouses to be informed of their rights to stop the choice of forum creating a disadvantage for the weaker member of a couple. The commission’s draft has run into opposition from Sweden; it needs unanimous approval to become EU law. At least nine countries (France, Italy, Spain, Romania, Austria, Hungary, Greece, Slovenia and Luxembourg) have agreed to use what is called “enhanced co-operation” on the issue, enabling them to go ahead on their own.

Frank Arndt, head of international family work at Stowe Family Law, said: “This is a split, not a harmonisation. Current EU law in this area is a dog’s dinner of contradictions, absurdities and injustices. The country in which divorce proceedings are filed is of huge significance . . . and can have a dramatic bearing on the eventual settlement.”

To read the full ‘Water Cooler’, click here.

Frank Arndt heads the International Law Department at Stowe Family Law. He is a qualified lawyer in two European countries, a qualified judge in Germany and a registered European lawyer with the Law Society in England. An expert in cross-border family law, he regularly advises on cases involving families and assets scattered across continents.

Over the past decade, efforts to conceal assets and avoid tax have become more sophisticated. This is why our team here at Stowe Family Law LLP includes two forensic accountants, who work to ensure that our clients are not caught out by offshore scheming.

Elsewhere, the proliferation of such schemes has led to drastic action. Earlier this year the German government took its pursuit of tax dodgers to a new level, when it paid for stolen data with which to hunt the evaders down. German spies paid around £3.2 million for around 1,400 names.

The move sparked a new discussion about fruit of the poisonous tree. This is a legal metaphor, drawn from a Biblical passage, used to describe evidence gathered with the aid of illegally-obtained information. Continue reading »

Frank Arndt heads the International Law Department at Stowe Family Law

Our International Law Department receives a steady stream of enquiries from popular ex-pat destinations such as France, Spain, Switzerland and Australia. Some callers wish to know if they can issue divorce proceedings in England. As I have noted previously, many wives have good reason to file here if possible, because the financial settlements can be advantageous. Other clients seek qualified advice about the various legal avenues available to them, drawing upon our firm’s expertise in cross-border divorce, asset protection and our network of international legal contacts.

The department is headed by Frank Arndt, who speaks a number of languages fluently and has higher rights of audience in the Federal Court in Germany. He is a member of the International Society of Family Law and the International Bar Association.

Frank recently wrote an article for the online magazine Expatica, which is packed with useful information and has been well-received. In it, he details the “ten essential pieces of advice that should be followed by any ex-pat parent facing the challenge of family breakdown”.

I have copied the piece in full below. If any overseas readers have enquiries or comments, please use the comments section or the confidential contact form – I will forward all queries. Continue reading »

I am always bemused when newspapers claim that the start of the New Year is the busiest time of year for divorce lawyers. Sitting at my desk today, utterly exhausted, I would beg to disagree. In last week’s run up to the holidays, a client flew in from the Channel Isles to see me, I was in London then on to Exeter in Devon, I had a 300 mile car journey back to Leeds, then to Hale in Cheshire for an entire day and back to Leeds for a 6.30am start appearing on the radio. Of the other lawyers in the office, Chris McVay was in court in Newcastle, Julian Hawkhead in the High Court in London, Frank Arndt was in court in Leeds, Judith Routledge was in court in York, Stephen Hopwood in court in Harrogate. Everyone I see who is still left in the office, is breathlessly rushing around, and has hardly any time to count down the hours to a well-earned break.

So do I think New Year will bring an immediate divorce for couples whose relationship is going through a bad patch?

I don’t think so.

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I have been profiled in the latest issue of Yorkshire Today magazine.

The full interview is after the jump.

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