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This year Dawson Cornwell acted in a landmark matrimonial law matter in which a five-strong Supreme Court unanimously ruled that disputes over money between divorcing spouses must end when one of them dies.
The case centred on an attempt by Nafisa Hasan to continue a financial claim against the estate of her former husband, Mahmud Ul-Hasan, after his death.
In the original High Court ruling, Mr Justice Mostyn said that he was bound by a previous Court of Appeal decision, which meant that he was forced to dismiss the wife’s claim. However, he said that without that ruling he would have found that the wife could continue her claim, relying on the Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1934. He granted a “leapfrog” appeal, allowing the wife and her lawyers to bypass the Court of Appeal and go directly to the Supreme Court.
The judges ruled that allowing legal proceedings to continue after the death of a spouse would require law reform, which was a matter for parliament.
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The firm also represented the husband in one of the most important cases on prenuptial agreements in the past decade. In a case involving parties known only as MN and AN (to protect the couple’s children), the High Court reinforced the position in the earlier case involving the German heiress Karin Radmacher and her banker-turned-student husband Nicolas Granatino, that courts should take account of such agreements provided that they are not completely unreasonable or signed under duress.
The case involved a foreign couple; the 61-year-old husband was said to be worth £32.5 million by the time the couple signed a prenup in 2005. The agreement stipulated that in the case of break-up, each would retain property accumulated before they met. In addition, the wife would receive provisions including £500,000 for each year of the marriage up to £12.5 million, and maintenance of £60,000 a year for each child plus school fees and medical expenses. The 51-year-old wife, described in court as a “home-maker and child-carer”, had claimed that the terms were insufficient and that she had been unduly influenced to agree to the deal.
The firm also represented in wardship proceedings a mother who had been stranded in Pakistan by her child’s father, who had stolen her travel documents and returned to England with the child. She successfully challenged the Home Office’s policy arguing that it was discriminatory against foreign spouses who were stranded abroad to be unable to claim the domestic violence concession to secure their immigration status.
This specialist family law firm based in London was established by John Dawson and John Cornwell in 1972. A decade later, Cornwell founded Resolution, the national organisation for family lawyers, which now has 6,500 members. His purpose was to change the way in which family law cases were handled and to encourage a constructive and conciliatory approach. In 1988, Cornwell co-founded the Family Mediators Association, having been one of the first family lawyers in the UK to be trained as a mediator.
Shabina Begum, an a senior associate at the firm, who was recently interviewed by The Brief, the legal bulletin of The Times, was in the team that helped to draft the Marriage and Civil Partnership (Minimum Age) Act, which protects young children from being subjected to child marriage.
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This followed the work of the late Anne-Marie Hutchinson, a partner at the firm, which was instrumental in the introduction of the Forced Marriage (Civil Protection) Act 2007, which enabled courts to make orders to prevent women and girls being taken overseas to marry against their will.
★ Commended for family
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