Jurisdiction(s):
United Kingdom

Hadkinson Ordered, Unless Refused: Enforcing LSPOs and Contempt on Appeal in Financial Remedies: Ahmad v Faraj [2025] EWCA Civ 468 (England and Wales): de Gafforj criteria and Mubarak principle

Published on: 20 June 2025

Published by a LexisNexis Family expert

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Ahmad and another company v Faraj [2025] EWCA Civ 468

What are the practical implications of this case?

This judgment serves as a timely reminder of the range of powers the courts can deploy after a party breaches an order, and the need to calibrate the response between imposing the less severe Hadkinson order and making an unless order. Although both remedies are unusual, the court emphasised that defiance would not be indulged and that these measures would be invoked to secure that any contempt is purged. Notably, even where an unless order could culminate in an appeal being struck out notwithstanding that permission to appeal had been granted (as was a live possibility here), the making of an unless order may still be justified. Lady Justice King concluded that the husband was intentionally in breach, and reaffirmed the approach in Mubarak v Mubarik (Contempt in Failure to Pay Lump Sum: Standard of Proof) [2006] EWHC 1260 (Fam), [2007] 1 FLR 722: the bare fact that a party lacks the means to satisfy an order does not bear on whether the contempt is wilful. That consideration is, instead, to be addressed when determining how and whether...

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