Tahmina Rahman discusses E V L, an important new authority for cases involving short childless marriages.

In E v L, Mr Justice Mostyn considered an application for financial remedies following a short marriage. He concluded the fact that the marriage was childless was irrelevant to whether there should be a departure from the application of the equal sharing principle. Moreover, there was no reason to distinguish between an accrual (of assets) over a short marriage and an accrual over a longer marriage. The statutory factor of the duration of marriage was likely to be reflected in any event in that an acquest over a shorter period was likely to be less. Mostyn J also considered the approach to valuing businesses in this case where three accountants gave ‘hot-tub’ evidence as to the value of one of the husband’s companies.

This article was first published by Lexis®PSL on 27 July 2021