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8th October 2024

Partner Olivia Piercy leads work on Resolution’s ground-breaking report on domestic abuse in financial remedy proceedings

Partner Olivia Piercy leads work on Resolution’s ground-breaking report on domestic abuse in financial remedy proceedings
Olivia Piercy
Olivia Piercy
Partner

Resolution, a campaigning organisation that represents 6,500 family justice professionals, has today, 8 October, published its ground-breaking report on domestic abuse in financial remedy proceedings.

This project was led by our partner Olivia Piercy and barrister Anita Mehta of 4PB, who co-chair Resolution’s Economic Abuse Working Party. The report sets out research undertaken by the working party which reveals that over 80% of family lawyers believe the family court does not sufficiently take into account domestic abuse when resolving couples’ finances on divorce. The research also reveals significant concern that domestic abuse – and specifically economic abuse – continues to be perpetrated through financial proceedings on divorce.

The report voices a powerful call for the family court to modernise its approach to economic abuse. It sets out that the family court’s failure to recognise and prevent continuing domestic abuse through the financial remedy process leads to unfair outcomes for the most vulnerable litigants in the family court.

The working party brought together over 50 leading family lawyers, academics, domestic abuse charities, divorce coaches and independent financial advisers, to make recommendations about how to reduce ongoing abuse and produce fairer outcomes for victim-survivors.

Olivia Piercy said: “This report voices a powerful call for change from the professionals who work in the family justice system.

“Some studies have shown that financial abuse occurs in as many as 99% of domestic abuse cases. Family justice professionals have long been familiar with litigants who attempt to prevent their former partners from receiving a fair financial settlement on separation. Withholding funds, hiding assets, delaying, bullying, and breaching court orders have been persistent problems that we must grapple with. However, it is only following recent developments, that we have come to understand that these behaviours form part of a pattern of post-separation domestic abuse.

“The fact that domestic abuse is so prevalent is not a reason to ignore it.”

The work in this area is only just beginning. This report aims to start a constructive conversation. It sets out Resolution’s research, analysis and proposals for legal, procedural and cultural change within the justice system, to make it safer and fairer for victim-survivors of domestic abuse.

Access the full report, published by Resolution, here: Domestic Abuse in Financial Remedy Proceedings (Resolution)