Sarah Everington reports on the growing convergence of family law & asset recovery
- Family lawyers increasingly need asset recovery expertise to uncover hidden wealth, scrutinise offshore structures and prevent asset dissipation.
- Early assessment of insolvency risks is crucial: bankruptcy and competing creditor claims can undermine enforcement of financial remedy orders.
Family law and insolvency are often regarded as distinct legal disciplines, each governed by its own statutory framework, procedural rules and policy objectives. Family law seeks to achieve fairness between spouses on the breakdown of a relationship, whereas insolvency law is primarily concerned with protecting creditors and ensuring the equitable distribution of an insolvent estate. Increasingly, however, the two disciplines overlap.
Modern financial remedy litigation frequently involves issues which would traditionally have been associated with commercial fraud, asset recovery or contentious insolvency proceedings. Family practitioners are regularly confronted with offshore trusts, complex corporate structures, cryptocurrency holdings, hidden assets and strategic asset dissipation. Equally, insolvency practitioners are increasingly required to investigate transactions arising out of matrimonial disputes, assess
