Civil way: 3 August 2018

The 156 paragraphs of Moylan LJ’s judgment in Waggott v Waggott [2018] EWCA Civ 727, [2018] All ER (D) 44 (Apr) kept the wife’s meal on the table but its duration was reduced from joint lives to a term of circa four and half years with a bar. The husband’s estimated income for the hearing year was £3.7m and a substantial proportion of it was bonus related. On appeal, the wife went after a share of the future bonus income on the ground that it was a matrimonial asset which she was entitled to share as with any other asset. The bonus earning capacity had been built up during the marriage and was therefore the product of marital endeavour. Nice one but it got nowhere in the Court of Appeal. Treating the bonus as such would fundamentally undermine the court’s ability to effect a clean break.

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