Protecting Client Wealth in Family Law – recorded lunchtime online conference

Hear from the experts at this online lunchtime conference. You can watch it on your computer or on your portable electronic device from anywhere.

The conference will be based on our highly successful video webinar technology: there'll be a chairperson and presentations.

One registration can be shared by colleagues within the same firm utilising the same login.

Session 1: Understanding Contributions – A Short and Long Term Perspective

This session looks at financial and non-financial contributions in short and long term relationships and provides an up to the minute update on the Court’s approach to contributions. It includes:

• Initial contributions – revisiting Pierce v Pierce (1999) and Fields v Smith (2015)

• What are the differing approaches on initial contribution?

• Impact of subsequent losses during marriage on initial contribution

• Post separation contributions – how are these taken into account?

• Big money cases – are they in a spate category?

• Inheritances and windfall gains – how are they treated?

• Special contributions and their impact on property settlement

• Is there a process of weighting contributions?

• Quantifying the homemaker contribution

• Can legal fees be added back into asset pool

• Case report – Trevi v Trevi [2019] FCAFC 173

Session 2: Binding Financial Agreements: Drafting with the End in Mind

The reality is that, for some clients, happily ever after will involve the parties going their separate ways. When relationship breakdown occurs, how watertight will your financial agreement be? This session takes a practical look at some of the risky clauses in a binding financial agreement that may render them non-binding and lessons from recent cases. It includes:

• When are BFAs appropriate? When should they be avoided?

• Key drafting tips and traps

• Can you quarantine assets?

• Risk factors in BFAs:

• Undue influence

• Unconscionable conduct

• Duress

• Mistakes – when is court rectification possible?

• Section 90G, evidentiary value of the Statement of Advice and the shifting onus

• Negligence claims and accrued jurisdiction

• How to protect oneself as a practitioner if there is scant disclosure and the client insists on doing the deal anyway

• Lessons from recent cases

Session 3: Third Parties in Property Settlements: Invited Guests and Gatecrashers

Third-party involvement in property settlement matters is becoming increasingly common, with complex family financial structures leading to more litigation involving third parties such as trusts, companies and creditors, This session looks at practical and procedural issues with the joining or intervention of third parties, including:

• What is required in establishing a cause of action against a third party?

• Family Court rules on third party proceedings

• Operation of Part VIIIAND S90 AE FLA

• Joinder application – Applications to bind companies or trusts

• The company as third party – piercing the corporate veil

• Parties seeking to assert or protect interests in property

• Responding to an application – the strike out application in response

• Third party proceedings impact on property settlements

• Vesting of trusts – Court powers that impact third parties

• Cost orders on third party proceedings

• Case study – some examples of third party cases and key take outs