The ruling by Mr Justice Mostyn supported the husband’s argument that divorcing partners are obliged to share only their UK-based pensions with former spouses. In contrast, said the judge, UK law could not extend to including QROPS pensions in divorce financial settlements.
The case sought to address whether the Family Court had the power to order the transfer, sharing or assignment of a pension in jurisdictions outside of the UK; in the end it decided that QROPS pensions fell outside the strictures provided by the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973.
The judge said that even if the overseas jurisdiction could enforce an order of the UK courts, the court actually had no real power to make such an order and to do so would conflict with the “presumption against extra-territoriality”. However, he further commented that if the money in the pension comes back into the UK, the wife would be able to make a claim on it; as such he decided not to dismiss Ms Goyal’s claim on her husband’s fund.
The ruling serves to affirm the existing law as it extends to QROPS pensions in relation to financial remedy orders in divorce cases.
However, it is important to remember that in some jurisdictions spouses may be able to make sharing applications in order to try and gain access to funds.
More information about QROPS pensions with Blacktower can be found here .
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On Thursday the Bank of England (BOE) rate committee met to discuss interest rates, and, even though inflation is growing, yet again they have decided to leave the base rate at 0.25%. They obviously feel this is the best option as they assess the extent of any consumer slowdown and while they continue to play the waiting game regarding how the EU Brexit divorce negotiations pan out. The BOE seems to be playing a deliberate wait and see game, and with economic news continuing to be negative in the last few weeks, it now seems likely that the base rate could stay at this level until at least 2019.
ng home from the pub on a Saturday night (and I’m Glaswegian so I’m allowed to joke about things like that); I’m talking about 2016 and what faces each and every one of us this year – uncertainty. In fact, it could almost be classed as uncertain uncertainty. The key issue for British expats is obviously the UK referendum on 23rd June when the vote will be taken as to whether or not the UK will stay in the European Union.