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NLJ this week: Could COVID-19 set aside your divorce settlement?

30 April 2021
Issue: 7930 / Categories: Legal News , Divorce , Covid-19 , Family
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Can your client cancel their divorce settlement because of the pandemic? Writing in NLJ this week, Jenny Duggan, senior associate, Stewarts, addresses this intriguing question in the context of a recent family court case.

In the case, FRB v DCA, the court held the pandemic was not an unforeseeable event which entitled the husband to set aside the financial remedy order made on his divorce. But, if the situation were different, could it be?

In this fascinating article, Duggan studies the case and explores the potential. Could the pandemic, for example, amount to a Barder event? If you and your client believe this is so then act quickly, she advises. If not, there are alternative options.

‘Indeed,’ she writes, ‘this may be the last pandemic that has the chance of being a Barder event, as it will be less arguable to claim that pandemics are unforeseen or unforeseeable in the future’.

MOVERS & SHAKERS

DWF—19 appointments

DWF—19 appointments

Belfast team bolstered by three senior hires and 16 further appointments

Cadwalader—Andro Atlaga

Cadwalader—Andro Atlaga

Firm strengthens leveraged finance team with London partner hire

Knights—Ella Dodgson & Rebecca Laffan

Knights—Ella Dodgson & Rebecca Laffan

Double hire marks launch of family team in Leeds

NEWS
Artificial intelligence may be revolutionising the law, but its misuse could wreck cases and careers, warns Clare Arthurs of Penningtons Manches Cooper in this week's NLJ
Small law firms want to embrace technology but feel lost in a maze of jargon, costs and compliance fears, writes Aisling O’Connell of the Solicitors Regulation Authority in this week's NLJ
The Supreme Court issued a landmark judgment in July that overturned the convictions of Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo, once poster boys of the Libor and Euribor scandal. In NLJ this week, Neil Swift of Peters & Peters considers what the ruling means for financial law enforcement
Charles Pigott of Mills & Reeve reports on Haynes v Thomson, the first judicial application of the Supreme Court’s For Women Scotland ruling in a discrimination claim, in this week's NLJ
Bea Rossetto of the National Pro Bono Centre makes the case for ‘General Practice Pro Bono’—using core legal skills to deliver life-changing support, without the need for niche expertise—in this week's NLJ
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