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Re V: how will the challenge to the spirit of the maintenance regulation fare in the Court of Appeal?
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The preface to Council Regulation (EC) No. 4/2009 on jurisdiction recognition and enforcement of decisions and co-operation in matters relating to maintenance obligations (the maintenance regulation) references the aspiration of creating common procedural rules to ‘simplify and accelerate’ (para (4)) the settlement of maintenance claims and promote ‘legal certainty’ and ‘predictability’ (para (19)) for parties living in the Member States. The merit in its aims is irrefutable but case law since the regulations came into force on 18 June 2011 reveal discrete occasions where it may fail to meet these objectives.
One such challenge lies in the interaction between the maintenance regulation and Council Regulation (EC) No. 2201/2003 concerning jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in matrimonial matters and matters of parental responsibility (Brussels II revised) which governs divorce jurisdiction. Although there is some overlap the criteria for establishing jurisdiction for divorce and spousal maintenance are different. Where maintenance claims are not necessarily invoked as a matter of standard practice at the commencement of divorce proceedings and free-standing maintenance applications exist in another member state’s domestic law parties risk litigating matters relating to the breakdown...
Read the full article here.
