Legal services payment orders and litigation conduct – a warning to solicitors flowing from the recent judgment of Sir Jonathan Cohen in Xanthopoulos v Rakshina [2022] EWFC 30

Judgment in this long-running international financial remedy case was handed down on 4 April 2023 by Sir Jonathan Cohen (“Cohen J”). The case began when the former husband (“H”) issued a petition for divorce in England on 21 September 2020.  Since then the parties have been engaged in costly litigation about jurisdiction children and money.  This was H’s application for financial remedy orders pursuant to leave given under Part III of the Matrimonial Family Proceedings Act 1984. The parties’ marriage was brought to an end by a decree of divorce granted in Russia in March 2021.

Both parties are Russian nationals with H also having Greek nationality. They married in Moscow in March 2006 and made a home together in Siberia. A Russian post-nuptial agreement was signed in November 2013. The parties have 2 children and they spent time in England to enable their children to be educated here. At the final hearing Cohen J found that H should have accepted an open offer made by the former wife (“W”) in May 2021. H never made a single offer nor did he respond constructively to W’s...

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