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30 April 2021
Issue: 7930 / Categories: Legal News , Divorce , Covid-19 , Family
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NLJ this week: Could COVID-19 set aside your divorce settlement?

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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

Slater Heelis—Charlotte Beck

Slater Heelis—Charlotte Beck

Partner and Manchester office lead appointed head of family

Civil Justice Council—Nigel Teasdale

Civil Justice Council—Nigel Teasdale

DWF insurance services director appointed to Civil Justice Council

R3—Jodie Wildridge

R3—Jodie Wildridge

Kings Chambers barrister appointed chair of R3 Yorkshire

NEWS

The abolition of assured shorthold tenancies and section 21 evictions marks the beginning of a ‘brave new world’ for England’s rental sector, writes Daniel Bacon of Seddons GSC

Stephen Gold’s latest Civil Way column rounds up a flurry of procedural and regulatory changes reshaping housing, alternative dispute resolution (ADR) and personal injury litigation
Patients are being systematically failed by an NHS complaints regime that is opaque, poorly enforced and often stacked against them, argues Charles Davey of The Barrister Group
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
An obscure Victorian tort may be heading for an unexpected revival after a significant Privy Council ruling that could reshape liability for dangerous escapes, according to Richard Buckley, barrister and emeritus professor of law at the University of Reading
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