The recent case of PN v SA (EWFC 141) made it clear that the Court will not enforce a financial agreement made before, during or after a marriage if one of the spouses signed it under inappropriate pressure and without the benefit of legal advice.

In this landmark case, the Family Court awarded the wife just over £230 million – the third largest divorce settlement in English legal history. That amounted to about 44% of the total matrimonial assets between the husband and wife.

The Court found that the wife signed a post-nuptial agreement without proper legal advice, without any financial disclosure from the husband, and under undue pressure from him.

The case highlights the Court’s increasing willingness to consider coercive control, (even in the absence of physical violence), when assessing the validity of pre- and post-nuptial agreements. In this case, the Court recognised that there was a pattern of persistent behaviour, which could erode a spouse’s free will and constitute coercive control.

The brief facts of the case were as follows; the husband and wife married in 2005. The husband accumulated very substantial wealth after floating his technology company to generate an estimated £1.5 billion for the couple. The husband and wife signed a post-nuptial agreement in 2021 in which they agreed to share their overall wealth fairly. This agreement was entered into freely with the benefit of legal advice.

However, after their separation the husband and wife signed a further agreement in 2023. There was a complicating factor in that the original version of this agreement (which was in Portuguese) was substantially different from a later English translation.

The judge dealing with the case found that there was a power imbalance in the marriage and that the husband had used scare tactics with the wife, such as leading her to believe that she would end up working at Tesco’s if she tried to rely on the agreement she had signed in 2021. The husband also specifically, and deliberately, isolated the wife from her own family lawyer until there was a signed deal.

The judge found that the agreement that the wife had signed up to after their separation was not enforceable for various reasons, but particularly because the husband had exploited the wife’s vulnerability, had intimidated her and “took wholly unfair advantage of her.”

The wife received a substantial financial award to reflect the Court’s assessment of the harm caused by the husband’s coercive behaviour.

This case underlines that agreements signed under undue pressure can be challenged if they fall short of the requirements for proper legal advice and financial disclosure.  It also recognises the vital emotional support that family lawyers often provide to their clients alongside formal legal advice.