Case No. EWFC-136

v Granatino [2010] UKSC 42; [2010] 3 WLR 1367. The majority of the Supreme Court held at paragraph [75] that:-“The court should give effect to a nuptial agreement that is freely entered into by each party with a full appreciation of its implications unless in the circumstances prevailing it would not be fair to hold the parties to their agreement”.35.Although the Court declined to lay down rules as to the circumstances in which it would not be fair to hold the parties to their agreement, saying it would not be desirable to fetter the flexibility that the court requires to reach a fair result, it is fair to note that Mr Granatino was, in effect, held to an agreement that most English family lawyers prior to Radmacher would have considered unfair. 36.Moreover, the Court clearly took the view that it would be easiest to show that an agreement was not unfair if it excluded sharing but did not prevent the court from providing for the reasonable needs of the applicant. At Paragraph 81, the majority say that it is “…needs and compensation which can most readily render it unfair to hold the parties to an ante-nuptial contract”. 37.At Paragraph 82, they add:-“Where, however, these considerations do not apply and each party is in a position to meet his or her needs, fairness may well not require a departure from their agreement as to the regulation of their financial affairs in the circumstances that have come to pass. Thus it is in relation to the third strand, sharing, that the court will be most likely to make an order in the terms of the nuptial agreement in place of the order that it would otherwise have made”.38.Indeed, Lady Hale, agreed at Paragraph 178 in a judgment in which she otherwise dissented, saying:-“In the present state of the law, there can be no hard and fast rules, save to say that it may be fairer to accept the modification of the sharing principle than of the needs and compensation principles.”39.Mr Boydell, who appears on behalf of the Wife, has drawn my attention to the comments of Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers at paragraph [81] where he said:-“…needs and compensation can most readily render it unfair to hold the parties to an ante-nuptial agreement… [but] Equally if the devotion of one partner to looking after the family and the home has left the other free to accumulate wealth, it is likely to be unfair to hold the parties to an agreement that entitles the latter to retain all that he or she has earned”40.That is not, of course, the exact position here as the Wife did continue to work and earn her own money as well as develop a successful business but I entirely accept that the Husband earned infinitely more money than her during the marriage and she was held back by her commitments to the children. I do, however, make the important point that a generous needs assessment in this case would undoubtedly mean that the Husband will not be able “to retain all that he or she has earned”.41.Mr Boydell also draws my attention to the observations of Mostyn J in