Blog
From garage to unicorn – Employment law lessons for scaling tech teams
Catherine Bourne
5 May 2016
The opportunities and pitfalls of surrogacy for same sex couples
Reports last week of a gay couple fighting for custody of their surrogate child gives a harsh warning on the pitfalls of international surrogacy. Happily, the couple have won their custody battle with the surrogate mother, who changed her mind about handing over the child when she discovered the intended parents were a gay couple. The American-Spanish couple entered into a surrogacy arrangement in Thailand where same sex marriage is not recognised. Their child was born in January 2015. Thailand is no longer an option for foreign surrogacy, which since this case has been banned, but we find that when one country closes its borders to international surrogacy, another one opens, and intended parents must be extremely cautious when choosing where to enter into their surrogacy arrangement (and where the child is to be born).
26 April 2016
Moving abroad with children - rocking the legal ‘see-saw’ of habitual residence
Sadly, disputes regarding the international movement of children are common in the English courts, as a result of the increasingly international dynamic of families who move from country to country with their children. Moving a child to another country without the approval of the other parent or permission from a court can have serious legal implications and child abduction proceedings may become inevitable.
19 April 2016
IVF clinic mistakes create legal lacuna for children - beware the traps of the UK’s complex legal parenthood rules
We have recently seen several reported cases dealing with the legal fall out when mistakes are made by some IVF clinics in relation to consent forms, leaving a number of parents in the unhappy position where they are not the legal parents of their children. The Judge in the case of The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008 (A & Ors) [2015] EWHC 2602 (“Re A”) described the situation as “alarming and shocking”, making clear that legal parentage is “a question of the most fundamental gravity and importance”. We see similar consequences for parents in surrogacy cases where the commissioning parents are not the legal parents of a child born as a result of a surrogacy arrangement, despite genetic connections.
23 March 2016
Les nouveaux défis en matière de contrats en Droit de la famille pour les couples internationaux
De manière croissante, des couples de nationalités différentes me consultent et me demandent d’établir pour eux des contrats maritaux. Mon devoir de conseil m’oblige cependant à les avertir qu’il se peut qu’ils rencontrent des difficultés quant à l’application de ce contrat, particulièrement à l’étranger.
23 March 2016
The challenges with family law agreements for international couples
Increasingly, I find myself asked by one member of an international couple to draft an agreement which I have to advise them will be difficult to uphold, especially across international borders.
The vast majority of my clients have international connections, whether by nationality, residence, or substantial assets outside England. While there is a substantial amount of international family law to help such couples, there are huge gaps. Many of the gaps involve significant issues which clients want advice on every day.
This article was first published in WealthBriefing in March 2016.
- Children
- Civil Partnerships & Co-habitation
- Divorce & Separation
- Financial Settlements
- International Adoption & Surrogacy
- International Family Law
- Mediation & Alternatives to Litigation
- Pre-nuptial & Post-nuptial Agreements
- Anglo French Family Law
- Legal Updates
- Reflections on The Split
- Child Relocation after Divorce or Separation