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A wealthy Russian divorce battle has produced a sharp warning about trying to challenge foreign nuptial agreements in the wrong English court. Writing in NLJ this week, Vanessa Friend and Robert Jackson of Hodge Jones & Allen examine Timokhin v Timokhina, where the High Court enforced Russian judgments arising from a prenuptial agreement despite arguments based on the landmark Radmacher decision
The defendant claimed English public policy required scrutiny of whether the agreement was fair and freely entered into. But Mr Justice Dexter Dias rejected the idea that Radmacher acts as an ‘ever-present yardstick’ outside family proceedings. Because the claim was a debt enforcement action in the King’s Bench Division, not ancillary relief proceedings in the Family Court, fairness under family law simply was not the issue.
The authors say the ruling offers a clear lesson: parties seeking to resist enforcement of foreign prenups should seriously consider launching Part III proceedings instead. Otherwise, they risk finding the court has no jurisdiction to help them.
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