a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_ySg-RK3MUak/SUnF0bzOn6I/AAAAAAAABPI/a-ynVlfeig8/s1600-h/Congrats.jpg"img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 120px; height: 120px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_ySg-RK3MUak/SUnF0bzOn6I/AAAAAAAABPI/a-ynVlfeig8/s200/Congrats.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5280969542675111842" border="0" //ao:smarttagtype namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" name="country-region"/o:smarttagtypeo:smarttagtype namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" name="State"/o:smarttagtypeo:smarttagtype namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" name="place"/o:smarttagtype!--[if gte mso 9]xml w:worddocument w:viewNormal/w:View w:zoom0/w:Zoom w:punctuationkerning/ w:validateagainstschemas/ w:saveifxmlinvalidfalse/w:SaveIfXMLInvalid w:ignoremixedcontentfalse/w:IgnoreMixedContent w:alwaysshowplaceholdertextfalse/w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText w:compatibility w:breakwrappedtables/ w:snaptogridincell/ w:wraptextwithpunct/ w:useasianbreakrules/ w:dontgrowautofit/ w:usefelayout/ /w:Compatibility w:browserlevelMicrosoftInternetExplorer4/w:BrowserLevel /w:WordDocument /xml![endif]--!--[if gte mso 9]xml w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="156" /w:LatentStyles /xml![endif]--!--[if !mso]object classid="clsid:38481807-CA0E-42D2-BF39-B33AF135CC4D" id="ieooui"/object style st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } /style ![endif]--style !-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:"MS Mincho"; panose-1:2 2 6 9 4 2 5 8 3 4; mso-font-alt:"?? ??"; mso-font-charset:128; mso-generic-font-family:modern; mso-font-pitch:fixed; mso-font-signature:-1610612033 1757936891 16 0 131231 0;} @font-face {font-family:"\@MS Mincho"; panose-1:2 2 6 9 4 2 5 8 3 4; mso-font-charset:128; mso-generic-font-family:modern; mso-font-pitch:fixed; mso-font-signature:-1610612033 1757936891 16 0 131231 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"MS Mincho";} p {mso-margin-top-alt:auto; margin-right:0in; mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; margin-left:0in; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"MS Mincho";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} -- /style!--[if gte mso 10] style /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} /style ![endif]-- p class="MsoNormal"o:p /o:p/p p class="MsoNormal"o:p /o:p/p p style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"Congratulations to our victorious client, Rod MacLeod, to whom we rendered extensive advice from afar throughout his long-standing divorce case in the courts of the Isle of Man and then in the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council./pp style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"The case has resulted in a landmark decision today in favor of our client by the Privy Council, which ruled ? for the first time ? that post-nuptial agreements are enforceable under English law./pp style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council is the court of final appeal for the overseas territories and Crown dependencies, and for some Commonwealth countries.st1:country-region st="on"st1:place st="on"br //st1:place/st1:country-region/pp style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"st1:country-region st="on"st1:place st="on"span style="" lang="EN"England/span/st1:place/st1:country-regionspan style="" lang="EN"?s Daily Mail summarized the facts as follows:o:p/o:p/span/p p style="margin-left: 0.5in; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"span style="" lang="EN"The ruling comes after a millionaire businessman appealed to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council over a series of agreements before and during his marriage which set out his wife's share of a £13.8million-pound fortune. o:p/o:p/span/p p style="margin-left: 0.5in; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"span style="" lang="EN"Roderick MacLeod, 64, a st1:country-region st="on"U.S./st1:country-region businessman living in the Isle of Man, and his wife Marcia, 42, agreed a 'pre-nup' when they married in 1994 in st1:state st="on"st1:place st="on"Florida/st1:place/st1:state. o:p/o:p/span/p p style="margin-left: 0.5in; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"span style="" lang="EN"The agreement was amended twice during their ten-year marriage which produced five sons. o:p/o:p/span/p p style="margin-left: 0.5in; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"span style="" lang="EN"After their 2004 divorce Mr MacLeod offered his wife about £1million on the basis of their post-nuptial agreement, then he changed his offer to putting about £1.25million in a trust fund for their sons. An st1:place st="on"Isle of Man/st1:place court ruled that Mrs MacLeod should receive the extra money in a lump sum. o:p/o:p/span/p p style="margin-left: 0.5in; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"span style="" lang="EN"But yesterday the Privy Council overturned that decision, ruling that there were no circumstances to justify changing the couple's post-nuptial agreement. o:p/o:p/span/p p style="margin-left: 0.5in; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"span style="" lang="EN"Courts currently take 'pre-nups' into account but they are not legally binding. However, as they become more popular, there is pressure for them to be given more force. o:p/o:p/span/p p style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"span style="" lang="EN-GB"So where does this leave uprenuptial/u agreements in st1:country-region st="on"st1:place st="on"England/st1:place/st1:country-region? They are ?taken into account? and may be a significant factor in a divorce case to the extent that the English judge feels that it is proper to do so, depending on the circumstances of the case.It also means that if a prenuptial agreement is renegotiated and revised uafter/u the parties marry, it will likely be enforced./span/pp style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"span style="" lang="EN-GB"With respect to post-nuptial agreements, Baroness Hale said that:o:p/o:p/span/p p style="margin-left: 0.5in; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"span style="" lang="EN-GB"?We must assume that each party to a properly negotiated agreement is a grown up and able to look after him- or herself. At the same time we must be alive to the risk of unfair exploitation of superior strength. But the mere fact that the agreement is not what a court would have done cannot be enough to have it set aside.? o:p/o:p/span/p pspan style="" lang="EN-GB"span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"Respectfully, that same argument applies just as much to agreements made before marriage as it does to agreements made after marriage. Indeed, people may well have far more negotiating strength before entering the state of matrimony than after they have married and changed their circumstances. Nonetheless, even as the Court modified the law as to post-nuptial agreements, it left it to Parliament to make the appropriate changes to the law concerning prenuptial agreements.br //span/span/ppspan style="" lang="EN-GB"span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"So how should one advise betrothed international couples with an English connection who wish to know whether a prenuptial agreement is advisable and under whose laws it should be executed? The answer is that they are still in a somewhat murky legal environment as to which experienced and strategic international family law counsel should be consulted. /spano:p/o:p/span/p
