The number of female entrepreneurs entering pre-nuptial agreements has risen sharply in the wake of a Supreme Court ruling allowing the contracts to be given more weight in England and Wales for the first time.
Fivefold increase
Lawyers are reporting that although the vast majority of requests for pre-nuptials are still made by men, the number of women seeking to enter such agreements has increased fivefold in just three years.
In 2011 only three per cent of requests came from businesswomen - it is now around 15 per cent.
JMW Solicitors said the number of pre-nuptial agreements entered into by its clients had trebled in the last three years, with almost 60 per cent coming from entrepreneurs.
Ruling
It said there had been a notable increase in requests for pre-nuptial agreements from women since the 2010 ruling in the case of Radmacher v Granatino - particularly from younger women with their own businesses.
In Radmacher, the Supreme Court ruled for the first time that pre-nuptials could be taken into account by the courts when deciding how to split assets between a couple on divorce.
It was suggested by the Court that the established rule that pre-nuptials were against public policy was not applicable any longer since marriage could no longer be considered as a life-long union following the introduction of no-fault divorce by the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973.
“Shift in attitudes”
Catherine Jones, a partner in family law a JMW, said: “Many of the individuals with whom we’re dealing are people who expect to make money at some point in the future….It marks a very definite shift in attitudes to prenups since the Supreme Court ruled in favour of Katrin Radmacher.
“The fact that the judgment made them more enforceable means that entrepreneurs have come to regard them as being just as important as other contracts for business planning purposes, regardless of the current size of their organisations.”
In February this year, the Law Commission published a report advising the UK Government to give pre-nuptial agreements legal force in divorce settlements in England and Wales.
The proposals are unlikely to be acted upon before the next General Election.
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