Unparalleled Circumstances

In Unparalleled Circumstances, a recent article in the New Law Journal, Daniel Lightman QC and Gregor Hogan consider the courts’ willingness to revisit orders to reflect the impact of Covid-19.

Their article considers Dinglis v Dinglis [2020] EWHC 1363 (Ch), where the court declined to vary the terms of a share purchase order made under section 996 of the Companies Act 2006 despite accepting that the Covid-19 pandemic was something “out of the ordinary” and entirely unforeseeable, and contrasts that with a more permissive approach seen in cases involving compliance with procedural deadlines. In the light of those developments and the experience of the 2008 financial crisis, they then consider whether Covid-19 could constitute a Barder event in the context of matrimonial finance.