WHEN THE COURT LETS YOU DOWN: A WORRYING CHRONOLOGY

January 28, 2019 · by gexall · in Access to justice, Members Content

In BC v BG [2019] EWFC 7 the court rejected an application to set aside an arbitration award made in ancillary relief proceedings. The application was unsuccessful (and the applicant awarded to pay costs). However the issue of concern is the chronology that led to the parties electing arbitration,...

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Tags: Access to Justice

2 Responses

Nick Hanning · January 29, 2019 at 11:36:41 · →

I do sympathise about the failures to get the case heard but by all accounts the decision made by the arbitrator was pretty much what a court would have awarded (not surprising given the experience of the arbitrator in question).

What I find most striking is that the poor wife spent £21,000 in making an application which cannot have lasted more than a day. And that’s without solicitors …
Mystery · January 29, 2019 at 11:58:10 · →

I have a case like that. I and my ex-wife agreed a settlement based upon me paying her some money on her spurious claim for a divorce award. She had been represented up to that point but then got rid of her lawyers. She filed a form A which was “creative” as to debts and assets (she had dissipated her assets post separation).

The Court rejected it in Jan 2018. A year follows in which she fails to file her form E and has an order for contempt and a wasted costs order against her. Eventually she files her form E which makes it clear that her “debts” don’t exist, and she had sold assets to pay her debts. The DJ hearing the pre-case review gives her a very clear indication that she has no case and that she is at risk of a hefty costs award.

To avoid the costs of the final hearing I offer the same amount less the wasted costs. She accepts and we put the order in again. It has been rejected again (despite the notes on file), and so we now need to go to the court and explain AGAIN why it is fair, notwithstanding that a different judge has said she is bound to fail. The woman has no assets and so any costs award against her will not be fulfilled.

ARRRGGGH!! Waste of court time and money, and a large amount of money of mine has been tied up awaiting this decision, so I cannot move on either.

I am a lawyer myself – albeit not in this field – and I look at it and think it is a joke. Only my lawyer is laughing, however.