Advocate Chris Hillier, Head of Family Law at Ingram Advocates, considers the impacts of the recent case of Standish v Standish.
Does the ‘yardstick of equality’ still apply when dividing matrimonial assets? It’s hard to believe that 25 years have passed since White v White was decided by the House of Lords (HL). It changed the course of the way assets and wealth were and are divided in family law matters where there is surplus money and property available after each side’s reasonable needs have been considered.
From White came the principle of the “yardstick of equality”, which sought to ensure fairness between divorcing spouses when making the division of assets. Here, whilst the husband was a successful farmer, the wife argued that her support of him, their family and their home had also enabled that success. The decision of HL confirmed that there should not be discrimination between the respective roles of the spouses as breadwinner and homemaker.
Earlier this year, an English divorce case, Standish v Standish, was heard in the Supreme Court. A ‘big money’ case, Standish explored the ‘matrimonialisation’ of assets – bringing wealth into a marriage by one of the parties, and the effect this had of re-classifying it into a matrimonial asset – or did it?
Background
In Standish, the parties’ assets were worth more than £130 million.
The husband had transferred £77.8 million to the wife for ‘tax planning reasons’ in 2017.
It was intended that the wife would settle the funds into a trust, but this was not done, and the wife started divorce proceedings in 2020.
The Court of first instance had ruled that the transfer of the non-marital assets by the husband to the wife did have the effect of ‘matrimonialising’ them, so they could be divided, although unequally.
Both the husband and wife appealed to the Court of Appeal, which reduced the order to the wife from £45 million to £25 million.
The Supreme Court’s decision
The wife issued an appeal to the Supreme Court. Following the hearing on 30th April and 1st May this year, her appeal was rejected.
Why is the decision important?
The Supreme Court’s decision to reduce the wife’s award has updated some of the principles around asset sharing on divorce:
Intention: The husband had not intended to keep the £80 million. But there was also a clear expectation that this would be put into trust and not kept by the wife.
Matrimonialisation
The Court of the Appeal had also ruled that the assets transferred to the wife had not become matrimonial property. This was upheld.
Source: The pre-marital nature of most of the assets was their ‘magnetic source.’ Most of the assets had come from the husband.
Conclusion
Standish confirmed that the sharing principle should only apply to matrimonial assets, rather than non-marital assets in certain cases.
It will be interesting to see whether the Royal Court will take this English authority into account when determining financial awards upon divorce in Jersey. After all, we are a separate jurisdiction – and it may be the case that we do things differently here.
(This article is not legal advice. For a confidential discussion about family law matters, please contact Chris on 01534 833 888).
