Today, I am at the Family Law Intensive Sydney put on by the Family Law Section of the Law Council of Australia. One of the highlights every year of the conference is the overview of the latest cases by Justices Boland & Watts.
Of particular interest to me, as a forensic accountant, were the cases associated with property, but I find it both useful and informative to understand the issues and problems that Family Laywers face on a day to day basis- relocation custody etc.
A couple of cases that I found relevant:
Kapoor & Kapoor (2010) FamCAFC 113 - addresses a common question that I come across being the difference between the members annual statement and the Family Law value.
Sindel & Milton (2010) FamCAFC 232 - involved a long marriage of 26 years and a significant property pool of $5.5 million. The husband argued for a long time that he was entitled to a greater contribution due to his superior business skill. The trial Judge awarded a 3% contributions adjustment to the husband but then awarded a 3% s.75(2) adjustment to the wife for the husband's superior earning capacity thus back to 50/50 split.
Superannuation
An interesting session by Martin Bartfield QC and Denis Farrar on the effects of superannuation splitting orders in defined benefit superannuation schemes, in particular highlighting the effect of the oders on each person interest in the years up to retirement. As a result of this session, I will be preparing another post on the most common defined benefit interest schemes and how they approach the issue of Family Law splitting.
