Dating after getting divorced can feel really scary. The insecurity of being older, divorced, and out of practice (for lack of a better phrase) all plays into the fear, anxiety and stress that dating after divorce can bring. As someone who didn’t get married until age 35, I dated a lot. Seriously, a lot. Let’s say I started dating in high school—age 16. That gave me 19 years in the dating scene before I tied the knot. I then got separated and divorced at 41 and dated after divorce for several years. I’m not married, but at 49, I met […]

The latest warning from the financial courts comes from the judgment of Recorder Salter in AA v AB (Costs) [2021] EWFC B16. The brief background is the parties met in 2005 and started cohabiting in the husband’s property which he had purchased prior to the marriage in 2002. In 2008, they relocated to the UAE where they lived in rented property and enjoyed the high standard of living of expatriates. They married in 2011 and had one child in 2015. They separated in 2019 when, in April, the wife issued for divorce in England based on the party’s joint domicile. […]

Divorce is a process. It’s a roller coaster ride. But during the ride, I think there’s a point when people feel like they’ve hit rock bottom. This article addresses rock bottom, and some divorce advice if/when you feel you are there. Rock bottom could be when the marriage is so bad that the person feels they need to separate. It might be when a spouse shocks them and says he/she wants a divorce and is in love with someone else. It might be the day the spouse moves out. It might be the day the person finds out their soon-to-be […]

The G7 finance ministers’ tax deal is a step on the road to a better global tax system. If we have got this far, it is because of pressure from citizens who have realised how broken the current system is. That is why this week’s move by the EU to force big corporations publicly to break down their profits on a country-by-country basis is as important as the G7 deal. The good news is that public country-by-country reporting will now be extended to all the biggest companies based or operating in the EU. The bloc already requires it for extractive […]

UK: Cost Budgeting In Civil Litigation – Where Are We Now? 01 June 2021 Trowers & Hamlins To print this article, all you need is to be registered or login on Mondaq.com. A “cost budget” sets out the costs a party has incurred and anticipates it will incur in court proceedings up to and including trial. Save for very few exceptions (including, by way of an example, cases in value of £10 million or more), all legally represented parties engaging in civil litigation on the multi-track must produce a cost budget before […]

The Prime Minister married his fiancee Carrie Symonds in a private ceremony at cathedral on Saturday. On Sunday church-goers expressed concern and called for clarification about how the ceremony was allowed to go ahead as Catholic canon law does not allow re-marriage of a divorcee whose former spouse is still alive. Mr Johnson is twice divorced. He was first married for six years Allegra Mostyn-Owen. He was then married for 27 years to Marina Wheeler. Their divorce was finalised in 2020. READ MORE But as neither were Catholic ceremonies, it is believed they were considered invalid by the church. Westminster […]

UK: The Risks Of Engaging In Civil Litigation As A Litigant In Person To print this article, all you need is to be registered or login on Mondaq.com. Court procedures can be daunting to the uninitiated and that is one good reason why you should never engage in civil litigation without professional assistance. In a case on point, a businessman had a costly judgment entered against him simply because of his repeated failure to abide by the rules. The businessman was sued by two claimants who said that he had induced them to make […]

At King & Wood Mallesons, we’re telling our clients and their boards to keep in mind two key considerations: first, work out what you are going to disclose in relation to climate targets and transition plans; and, second, understand the risks of disclosure. Who says what? Climate change disclosure is a particularly complex and rapidly evolving area. There are a range of voluntary reporting frameworks and standards. Certain regulators publicly support the framework developed by the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD). However, none of the frameworks or standards have been definitively adopted by governments or regulators in Australia, […]

UK: Witness Statements – Sticking To The Facts 21 May 2021 RadcliffesLeBrasseur To print this article, all you need is to be registered or login on Mondaq.com. Changes have been made to the rules governing witness statements over the past 12 months. These changes aim to make the process of preparing witness evidence more open and to ensure that the witness statement is a personal account of the facts. Changes to the Statement of Truth in witness statements came into effect in April 2020. The amendment under the 113th update to the Civil […]

‘Since the beginning of climate negotiations, it has been hard to compel governments to make large promises and deliver on them’ Despite intense climate worries, electorates have been unwilling to spend the trillions needed to cut emissions dramatically. That is why climate campaigners have increasingly pursued a new strategy: forcing climate policy through courts. Across the world, the UN now counts at least 1,550 such climate cases in 38 countries, often filed by young people invoking a fear for their future. Unfortunately, such cases undermine democracy, harm the poor and sidetrack us from smarter ways to fix the climate. Since […]

Crypto Goes Corporate: Litigation Sure To Follow Until recently, cryptocurrencies appeared to be far from the kind of institutionally sound investments that would be attractive to CFOs looking to diversify a corporate portfolio. Once seen as gimmicks for unsophisticated retail investors, many of whom purchased cryptocurrencies based on obscure internet nomenclature, nonsensical children’s songs, or even notable hip-hop artists, few would expect the notoriously volatile electronic currencies to find their way into corporate treasuries. The joke appears to be over, or perhaps is just beginning to turn stale. As executives have sought to stash excess corporate cash into electronic currencies, the novelty assets […]

If Matt Levine has a mantra in his “Money Stuff” column on Bloomberg, it’s this: everything is securities fraud. “You know the basic idea,” he often says in his most acerbic voice, “A company does something bad, or something bad happens to it. Its stock price goes down, because of the bad thing. Shareholders sue: Doing the bad thing and not immediately telling shareholders about it, the shareholders say, is securities fraud. Even if the company does immediately tell shareholders about the bad thing, which is not particularly common, the shareholders might sue, claiming that the company failed to disclose […]

“Copyers are no better than the Lowest of Robbers” William Hogarth & Ors 1735 “Copyright is for losers” Banksy, 2006 In the first part of our reflections on IP for world IP day, Michael Edenborough QC asked “are IPR good for the world”? Another question, less frequently addressed head-on, is whether if the subsistence of IPR is good for the world, does it follow that enforcement of those rights is also good for the world? Whilst it may seem that the two questions must be answered together, the commercial reality is more nuanced and poses further questions. What might be […]

Whatsapp chat rooms and Telegram channels across Germany lit up in the early hours of April 29. Young people frantically exchanged messages in a tone that went from disbelief to surprise to euphoria. The country’s highest court had just ruled that the government’s 2019 climate law was incompatible with fundamental rights, a victory for the nine young German activists that filed the lawsuit and for the global youth climate movement. Over the next few days, it also changed the course of Germany’s politics, economy and climate strategy for the next three decades. “For us it has been rather shocking, we […]

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW IN A MINUTE OR LESS Companies should anticipate the possibility that they will find themselves in a situation where a vendor, customer, or other contract counterparty commences a bankruptcy case pursuant to Title 11 of the U.S. Code (the Bankruptcy Code). The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has caused economic stress to a wide variety of business sectors, and it has underscored the risk that a contract counterparty may file for bankruptcy. Bankruptcy effect on vendor and supply contracts Vendor and customer contracts are subject to disruption or involuntary modification in bankruptcy. Contracts with ongoing duties of […]

In our last issue of International Quarterly, we discussed a recent TCC decision concerning the extent of an expert’s duties to their client. In January 2021, the Court of Appeal released its judgment on the appeal of that case. While the outcome of the decision was consistent with the TCC, there were several differences in reasoning that warrant discussion, including importantly a rollback on the TCC’s view that an expert owed a fiduciary duty of loyalty to its client. The case first came before the courts when the developer of a large petrochemical plant in Asia (the Developer) sought an […]

Third-party funding is not new; however, it is about to enter a period of unprecedented global growth – notably in Spain and Latin America. The measures implemented by governments in response to COVID-19, coupled with the rapid economic downturn and ongoing uncertainty arising from the pandemic, have created the perfect storm. The outlook may seem bleak, but third-party funding offers a ray of hope for beleaguered boardrooms looking to maximize cashflow in this unpredictable period. Companies are finding themselves under increasing cash flow pressure. On the one hand, CEOs need to keep businesses running, but on the other hand they […]

Phillip M. Aurentz (left) and Aimee P. Fagan (right), partners with Sidley Austin (Courtesy photos) Little creates as much havoc in civil litigation as an ill-conceived or misunderstood protective order. Yet many parties rush through the process of negotiating and preparing a protective order, often delegating the task to young associates with little experience in identifying and surviving the pitfalls associated with them. There is no good substitute for experience. But careful consideration of the dozen questions posed below will help avoid some of the more common rookie mistakes. (1) How many and what confidentiality tiers are appropriate? Protective orders […]

Since we have been working together as divorce mediators for almost 14 years, my partner Brian James and I have started to see divorce mediation themes which arise and enable us to advise our clients on best practices and ways to deal with certain issues and roadblocks in the mediation process.   Here are three divorce mediation issues we see most often:   1. Clients who stand firm on an issue and refuse to budge.   In my professional opinion, the biggest obstacle to success in divorce mediation is when a client stands firm on an issue and refuses to […]

Part Two of my series on Effective Mediation Techniques for Complex Cases focuses on the timeline and mechanics of such mediations and includes an analysis of in-person vs. Zoom or other virtual platforms for mediations. Timeline for Effective Mediations in Complex Cases I begin with the assumption that the parties in any complex case wish to avoid trial and resolve their disputes wherever possible. It is my experience that most parties are not in the business of litigation and find it undesirable and costly. I also observe that there are no mediation preparation rules nor is there any template for […]