Kim Beatson investigates the struggle to establish jurisdiction in pre-nuptial cases
The EU provides for citizens to live and work in fellow member states which can lead to disharmony between the civil law jurisdictions of Europe which generally employ notarised marital property regimes and the common law jurisdictions which attach no property consequences to marriage and rely on judicial discretion.
Difficulties have arisen as separating couples have raced to seize jurisdiction, not choosing the jurisdiction with which the marriage has the closest connection, but deliberately concentrating on the financial outcome.
English advantage
It is not, therefore, surprising that the most prominent recent case law on pre-nuptial agreements involves foreign nationals seeking advantage from the English courts.
Most practitioners will be familiar with the case of Granatino v Radmacher [2010] UKSC 42, [2011] 1 All ER 373. The Supreme Court judgment was handed down in October 2010 when Nicholas Granatino, a French-born banker, challenged the Court of Appeal ruling which reduced his divorce settlement from his former wife, Katrin Radmacher from £5.85m to £1m.
At the first hearing,
