Children involved in your dispute

Our team led a case which reached the Hong Kong Court of Appeal concerning the issue of the removal of a child from Hong Kong to the US. This case was interesting because the orders in respect of the children had been made by the courts in Singapore where the children were born and where the father continued to reside. However, the mother and children had lived in Hong Kong for a number of years and therefore we sought an order through the courts there. The court reluctantly refused jurisdiction on the basis that it would not be in the children's best interest if there were multiple jurisdictions involved.

Our client, who shared the care of his two children with his former wife, opposed her application to relocate to Canada permanently with them. We represented him in the Court of Appeal and successfully overturned the initial decision, so his former wife did not have permission to leave with the children. The decision marked an influential development in the court's approach to applications to relocate abroad with children. 

We acted for the mother in her application for permission to relocate to Russia with the two children. This decision re-iterated what the Court of Appeal had said in MK v CK, that the only principle to apply is the welfare principle, but in this case the Court decided that our client should be given permission to relocate.