Archive for February, 2014

In dividing the £5 million assets of an 18-year marriage between a top lawyer and the mother of his four teenage children, the High Court has reiterated that pre-nuptial agreements have legal effect in England and Wales – if they are reasonable. The husband, a Dutch national and a solicitor in a ‘magic circle’ firm, and his English wife had each made proposals as to how their wealth should be divided which the Court found were unreasonable. He placed heavy reliance on a ‘pre-nup’ signed on the eve of their marriage and she argued that she should be compensated for having given up her own high-flying legal career to take on a full-time mother’s role. The pre-nup, amongst other things, preserved the parties’ individual ownership of assets that they brought into the marriage and provided for equal division of wealth acquired ... Read more