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).

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»

On Friday I enjoyed the company of family lawyers from around Europe. We had gathered in Paris for the opening of the law firm Cabinet CBBC (formerly the Cabinet Veronique Chauveau). With so many of us gathered in one place, the talk turned to family law – and how we are separated by our respective countries’ laws, customs and conventions.

Within the European Union, transnational family law does not operate as smoothly as one might reasonably expect, despite the determination to create a genuine area of freedom, security and justice whereby decisions taken in one member state are recognised and enforced throughout the EU.  Member states operate different divorce laws for its citizens, which may vary dramatically in other member countries. When litigants in member states look – understandably – for the smoothest way out of their domestic tangles, they can come a cropper.

It was a stylish and memorable evening (pictured above: with CBBC partner Alexandre Boiche and others). When I arrived at CBBC there were more than 100 people drinking champagne and attacking the buffet. The firm is located in the heart of Paris on Boulevard de Sébastapol, across three floors in a beautiful building just across from the courts on the Île de la Cité, next to Notre Dame Cathedral. I plunged straight in with my terrible French, which fortunately didn’t last too long, because most people took pity on me and spoke English!

I chatted to German lawyers from Stuttgart and Saarbrucken. I had a conversation with a French professor of law about French divorce law; there were diplomats present with an interest in child abduction cases.

Talking, it became clear that we continue to be divided and exercised by the laws that appear, vanish or change whenever a border is crossed. For example, Paris isn’t London. We don’t have a Civil Code; we have statute law and conventions of judge-made law.  La Manche divides us geographically (even if there is a tunnel underneath) but there is an economic, cultural and social divide that is reflected in our different law, practice and procedure. Continue reading »

Unless both parents consent to a child’s relocation from one country to another, such a move can be considered international child abduction.  But when a relationship ends, it is tempting to return home, to a safe environment. What if you live in another country and children are involved?

Within Europe there has been an increasing freedom of movement between countries.  Adults can move between countries and there are no restrictions on where they live and work.  Not so for children. The Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction makes provision for a child’s return to their country of habitual residence.  If you are going through an international divorce and you want to take your children with you when you leave a country, you need the other parent’s permission or an order of the court in the country where the children live. 

A court order may be harder to get than you suspect.  Suppose you are English, married to a German spouse and living in Germany with two children. You split up and decide to move back to England with the children – but your ex doesn’t agree.  A court may not agree either and you need to be careful in what you do next.

Even a move to which both parents have consented can be full of pitfalls.  What happens if your ex agrees to your return to the UK, only to change their mind as you board the plane?  The English court had to consider this in one recent case (P-J (Children) [2009] EWCA Civ 588), in which an English mother tried to move to England from Spain following the breakdown of her marriage to a Spanish national.  In that case, the husband had said that she could take the children to England if a reconciliation failed, but had objected when she tried to do so.  The court returned the children to Spain and gave the following guidance: Continue reading »

This morning, I carried out a number of file reviews and noted that increasing numbers of our UK clients have been unable to sell their homes. Divorce is stressful enough as it is, but in many cases property must be sold and the couple’s finances split before the divorce can be finalised. The houses in question don’t fall into any one category. They range from fabulous estates and overseas villas to family homes in which the parties continue to live together, because they can’t afford to live anywhere else.

Also this week I was contacted by a journalist at The Independent, who wished to gauge my views about the latest Budget. (You can read the article here.) It was doom and gloom as far as I could see. Clearly, the revival of the housing market is at the forefront of the Chancellor’s mind.

So I was intrigued to read about some new, property-based incentives to divorce in Spain. According to The Daily Telegraph, innovative Spanish agents have come up with some creative ideas to kick-start the plummeting property market there:

The latest offer from a property company in Huelva province in southwestern Spain promises a free divorce lawyer to couples who buy one of their three bedroom houses for 68,000 euros (£61,000). The deal by Geimsa realtors hopes to capitalise on the number of married couples delaying divorce proceedings because they cannot afford to set up new homes in the current economic climate.

“A divorce is very expensive,” said Vanesa Contioso of Geimsa. “So we are offering new clients the free use of our lawyers to handle the process”.

Now isn’t that an offer you can’t refuse? It doesn’t only apply to divorcing couples, either. The story continues: 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.

Continue reading »

This bright idea has been laid to rest.

In some quarters there remains an unswerving belief that divorced women, if they are unhappy with their financial settlements, should come to London. If they come to London, no matter where they live the world, justice will at last be done.

That is how the thinking goes – but it is an illusion, and it has always been an illusion. This week, the Court of Appeal laid the notion firmly to rest.  The learned Judges who did so may as well have been wearing black caps as they sounded a death knell to Part III of the Matrimonial and Family Proceedings Act 1984. a piece of legislation specifically designed to overcome injustice and extreme hardship which may be suffered by an applicant in foreign jurisdictions.

On 20 January 2009, the Court of Appeal handed down its judgment on a piece of long-running litigation between a Nigerian-born husband and wife, who also happen to be British citizens. Mr and Mrs Agbaje are aged 71 and 68 years old respectively. They married in 1967 and had five children, all of whom were born in Britain. They separated in 1999 and divorced in Nigeria.

The couple had lived in both Nigeria and England during their marriage. Mr Agbaje qualified in London as a Barrister and his practise is in Nigeria.  Mrs Agbaje settled in England in 1999; she tried to proceed with the divorce here, but the Judge, Mr Justice Ryder, found Nigeria was the proper country in which to hear this case. 

So after a 40-year marriage Mrs Agbaje applied for, and received, a financial settlement in Nigeria, seeking an interest in a home in Nigeria and in London. The case was heard by a Nigerian court, which applied Nigerian law. The result: she was left with just under £7,000, and only the right to live in a Nigerian house that neither of them wanted. Mr Agbaje retained assets worth £616,000, including ownership of two properties in London. There was also the income differential. To any English family lawyer, used to applying English family law, it was an appalling injustice.

Continue reading »

If worst comes to worst, make sure you have back-up.

If your intended spouse is a foreign national and you are going to move overseas to be with them, are you aware that if your marriage breaks down, you may be unable to return home to your family with your children?

You could, for example, be held to a pre-nuptial agreement in a foreign language that you did not understand when you trustingly signed it. What if it makes no proper financial provision for you or your children?

You may be submitted to the mercy of a foreign court – a religious court, even. What if it enforces a decision weighted against you, a decision that a court in your home country would not contemplate? At best, your departure would be authorised and you would then have to uproot your children and change their entire way of life. 

At worst, that court’s decision could leave you in a terrible situation: legally unable to leave that country with your children.  Continue reading »

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‘A last desperate hope’ from far flung shores  

A few weeks ago I attended my niece’s wedding at Ronit Farm near Tel Aviv, Israel. Although the bride, groom and all their respective families were born and brought up in Leeds, Yorkshire, they chose to celebrate their marriage under a canopy (called a ‘Chuppah‘ pictured) in the traditional Jewish way rather than in a local Synagogue or hotel back home.

The turn out was tremendous. Guests comprised the young and not so young and the golden couple were supported by over 100 of their glamorous ‘twenty-something’ friends. It was undoubtedly one of the most beautiful ceremonies I have ever seen. The setting was stunning and truly romantic, with the bride and groom tying the knot at sunset in the open air against the glorious backdrop of a lake lit by torches. The fragrant and spectacular flowers including rose petals were strewn along the aisle and the music was magical.

The cosmopolitan nature of the guests enhanced the enjoyment with independent and confident like-minded world travellers jetting in to the Middle East to party hard and celebrate the wedding. Dancing almost to dawn, the ladies jettisoned their stilettos for flip flops that my sister as a perfect Mother of the Bride, had thoughtfully provided for everyone! 

Career-wise, the bride and groom and many of their friends hail from the medical profession. It also appeared that most of the famous London and US firms were unknowingly well-represented at the wedding and there was an eclectic mix of cultural backgrounds. I noticed one impossibly handsome French accountant (who could have missed him?!) who is currently training with KPMG in Paris. His English girlfriend lives and works in London and they commute to see each other – they make a stunning couple. Many of the Greek, English and Israeli guests are temporarily based in London. Most spoke excitedly about their jobs, which they regard as firmly transnational – because their careers are giving them golden opportunities to travel, work abroad, and, if necessary, to live abroad. All the guests, including a British Airways pilot who had jetted in with his wife, an optometrist, acknowledged that they are privileged to be maximising such wonderful opportunities.  

However a stark contrast to the idyll I had been lucky to attend came in an email last week via my contact page, from an English woman who has started a new life and family in her husband’s country in the Far East. Continue reading »

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 »

Covert operations to uncover your partner’s secrets

For certain people, divorce – or even the thought of divorce – brings their very worst qualities to the fore.

Divorce is an emotional rollercoaster. When people are really hurting, particularly if they have been “swapped” for somebody else, self-preservation becomes all-important. But for some, such a state of mind leads to all-consuming hatred, malice and a desire for vengeance.

After 25 years as a divorce solicitor, nothing surprises me anymore. Drawing upon my own experiences – some of them eye-opening – I have compiled a countdown of the top ten dirty divorce tricks. 

Continue reading »