header-logo header-logo

Divorce funder fights on for £1m

27 September 2023
Issue: 8042 / Categories: Legal News , Divorce , Costs
printer mail-detail
The Court of Appeal has remitted a ‘long, bitter and extortionately expensive’ divorce case for a financial remedy hearing with a litigation funder attached as a party, following a ‘procedural quagmire’
In Simon v Simon & Level [2023] EWCA Civ 1048 the wife, Lauren Simon, took out nearly £1m in litigation loans from Integro Funding, trading as Level, to finance her divorce case. However, she later attended a private financial dispute resolution hearing, to which Level were not party. There, she reached agreement with the husband, Paul Simon, that she could live for the rest of her life at a property owned by her husband’s trust in exchange for giving up the right to a lump sum of about £3m. Consequently, she was unable to repay the loan.

A consent order was sealed and approved by a High Court judge, but later set aside by consent. The judge made separate case management orders to move matters to a financial remedy trial at which Level would be an equal party in the proceedings.

The husband appealed, partly on the grounds the judge was wrong to permit Level to intervene in the financial remedy proceedings, and the judge was wrong to find that litigation lenders should be treated better than secured creditors.

Delivering the main judgment, handed down this month, Lady Justice King said it was not necessary for the court to rule on whether it was wrong to permit Level to intervene. King LJ also held that ‘commercial litigation lenders are not in the same position as other creditors’ since litigation funders perform a valuable function of promoting access to justice.

The court partly allowed the husband’s appeal, holding the judge was in error in ordering a new full financial remedy hearing and transferring the civil proceedings to the family court. Otherwise, they upheld the judge’s approach. 
Issue: 8042 / Categories: Legal News , Divorce , Costs
printer mail-details

MOVERS & SHAKERS

Gilson Gray—Linda Pope

Gilson Gray—Linda Pope

Partner joins family law team inLondon

Jackson Lees Group—five promotions

Jackson Lees Group—five promotions

Private client division announces five new partners

Taylor Wessing—Max Millington

Taylor Wessing—Max Millington

Banking and finance team welcomes partner in London

NEWS
The landmark Supreme Court’s decision in Johnson v FirstRand Bank Ltd—along with Rukhadze v Recovery Partners—redefine fiduciary duties in commercial fraud. Writing in NLJ this week, Mary Young of Kingsley Napley analyses the implications of the rulings
Barristers Ben Keith of 5 St Andrew’s Hill and Rhys Davies of Temple Garden Chambers use the arrest of Simon Leviev—the so-called Tinder Swindler—to explore the realities of Interpol red notices, in this week's NLJ
Mazur v Charles Russell Speechlys [2025] has upended assumptions about who may conduct litigation, warn Kevin Latham and Fraser Barnstaple of Kings Chambers in this week's NLJ. But is it as catastrophic as first feared?
Lord Sales has been appointed to become the Deputy President of the Supreme Court after Lord Hodge retires at the end of the year
Limited liability partnerships (LLPs) are reportedly in the firing line in Chancellor Rachel Reeves upcoming Autumn budget
back-to-top-scroll