Important Recent Case Developments (Mid-January 2026 to end April 2026)

These are the noteworthy case law developments since the last issue went to press in March 2026. Not all of them are citable as precedent, but they are all informative and a good demonstration of the cases being heard up and down the country.

Non-compliance

Looking through our case summaries from the first part of this year, the number of reported cases where an issue is non-disclosure, litigation misconduct or some other form of non-compliance is regrettably high. There are a couple that bear reading: the Court of Appeal decision in De La Sala & Anor v De La Sala & Ors [2026] EWCA Civ 282, the case in which the wife’s mother gave significant money to the husband on the basis that they did not benefit the wife, and his subsequent non-disclosure of the gift; and MK v SK [2026] EWFC 28, an unsatisfying case in which Peel J met the wife’s needs against a background of non-disclosure by the husband.

We shall turn instead to two different situations: matrimonialisation or otherwise of pensions; and the effect, if any, of errors in the final divorce order.

Standish and pensions

In BS v HC [2026] EWFC 20 (B), HHJ Hess considered whether pensions were subject to matrimonialisation. The parties had agreed that the sharing principle applied to their other assets, but did not agree on the application of the principle to the husband’s pensions of over £3m or the wife’s modest pensions of £35,000.

The single joint expert had calculated the relevant apportionments for the duration of the marriage, including premarital cohabitation, on three different bases broadly similar to those set out at pages 72 and 73 of the second edition of the Guide to the Treatment of Pensions on Divorce (PAG2). Inevitably, the parties disagreed on the correct approach to apportionment, with the husband arguing for an approach based on when the service that led to the pension accrual was performed by the husband, and the wife arguing that the court should consider that the husband, as CEO, had chosen to make very large payments towards the pension fund during the course of the marriage; this led to representations about passive and active growth. In the end, the judge concluded that ‘In some cases one of the formulaic approaches might seem fairer, in other cases a different formulaic approach might seem fairer and in other cases a blend of approaches might be fairest’ and that, per Hart v Hart [2017] EWCA Civ 1306, fairness had a broad horizon and fortuitously did not demand precise mathematical calculations.

On the wife’s case, the husband’s pensions were wholly matrimonialised notwithstanding that a proportion predated their cohabitation. Matrimonialisation per Standish v Standish [2025] UKSC 26 relies upon the parties having treated the asset as shared, over time. The husband argued that undrawn pensions cannot meet the Standish test: they have not been used or enjoyed by the parties. HHJ Hess disagreed, holding that while actual use and enjoyment were one example, ‘a common intention to put the asset into use and enjoyment in the future could also in my view give rise to matrimonialisation if that intention was relied upon by the other party to his or her detriment’.

That, said the wife, was what had happened. She had taken a large inheritance and used it to buy a property in joint names on the husband’s promise that they were to share everything equally during their marriage. Nevertheless, the judge found that the words used were not sufficient on the facts to matrimonialise the husband’s pensions. Accordingly, a needs-based approach to pension sharing was taken. As the wife could not reasonably be expected to work, the appropriate pension share was premised on her drawing it immediately.

This judgment has been certified as citeable pursuant to the Practice Note (Citation of Cases: Restrictions and Rules) [2001] 1 WLR 1001 on the issues of pension apportionment and matrimonialisation.

Errors in a final divorce order

Labeja v The Estate of Shatochina Raisa Labeja & Anor [2026] EWFC 53 (B) is a decision of HHJ Farquhar about the courts’ powers to set aside a 2014 decree absolute on the basis of fraud or procedural irregularity, and the courts’ powers to rectify errors in the decree. It is not certified as citable, but is interesting nonetheless (and, of course, cites authorities on the issue).

The ‘husband’ claimed, after the death of the ‘wife’, that he had not known that he was divorced from her in 2014. There was evidence of service, so his application to set aside the decree was dismissed and the court made findings of dishonesty against him.

However, a second issue was whether the decree absolute actually referred to the parties. The wife’s name and the date of the marriage were both wrong. The name that was set out in the documentation clearly related to the wife, and the husband’s name was correctly given. The petition had used both of the wife’s name forms; only one appeared on the decree. The latter appeared to be a translation error, substituting the wife’s date of birth for the date of the marriage. The court found on the balance of probabilities that the parties referred to in the divorce papers were in fact the husband and wife.

The husband argued that neither FPR 4.1(6) nor the inherent jurisdiction gave the court jurisdiction to rectify or amend a decree absolute to change the name of a party or substitute a new party. The court held, applying X v Y (Divorce: Rectification of Decrees) [2020] EWHC 1116 (Fam), that it did have the jurisdiction under FPR 4.1(6) to correct the name and date.

Lastly, on the issue of whether the parties had been separated for 5 years, the ship had well and truly sailed. Perjury does not, by itself, make a divorce petition void, and the time for addressing the issue was back in 2014. Thereafter, the world is entitled to treat the decree as conclusive. While not binding on the court, the King’s Proctor had noted, in declining an invitation to intervene, that to set aside an order made so long ago would be both extraordinary and ‘almost entirely without precedent in the context of matrimonial proceedings’.

This article draws on the case summaries prepared by the FRJ summariser team. As ever, I am grateful to the team.