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18 November 2020 / Abby Buckland
Issue: 7911 / Categories: Features , Family , Divorce
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20 years forward…20 years back?

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Two decades on from White v White, Abby Buckland questions how much progress has been made in gender equality

In brief

  • Reasons for departing from equality: a fair outcome?
  • COVID-19: disproportionate impact on women’s employment.

It is now 20 years since the landmark White v White [2000] UKHL 54 decision which saw a move forwards for a divorcing party who was the home-maker and child-carer. White v White introduced a starting point, that ‘equality should be departed from only if, and to the extent that, there is good reason for doing so’. As Lord Nicholls summarised: ‘There should be no bias in favour of the money-earner and against the home-maker and the child-carer.’

This was a celebrated decision at the time, considered a sign that the law was catching up with society. White v White focused on the need to ensure the absence of discrimination and as Lord Cooke observed, ‘it will do much to enable English matrimonial property law to meet the requirements of contemporary society’. The

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NLJ this week: Online safety law at a crossroads
Fresh proposals to criminalise ‘nudification’ apps, prioritise cyberflashing and non-consensual intimate images, and even ban under-16s from social media have reignited debate over whether the Online Safety Act 2023 (OSA 2023) is fit for purpose. Writing in NLJ this week, Alexander Brown, head of technology, media and telecommunications, and Alexandra Webster, managing associate, Simmons & Simmons, caution against reactive law-making that could undermine the Act’s ‘risk-based and outcomes-focused’ design
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A landmark ruling has reshaped child clinical negligence claims. Writing in NLJ this week, Jodi Newton, head of birth and paediatric negligence at Osbornes Law, explains how the Supreme Court in CCC v Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust [2026] UKSC 5 has overturned Croke v Wiseman, ending the long-standing bar on children recovering ‘lost years’ earnings
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A Court of Appeal ruling has drawn a firm line under party autonomy in arbitration. Writing in NLJ this week, Masood Ahmed, associate professor at the University of Leicester, analyses Gluck v Endzweig [2026] EWCA Civ 145, where a clause allowing arbitrators to amend an award ‘at any time’ was held incompatible with the Arbitration Act 1996
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