Oana Croitoriu

We have acted for the Respondent Husband in relation to the financial remedy proceedings in the UK. The parties had various assets in the UK and Romania consisting mainly of the portfolio of properties but conduct issues were raised by the Wife due to a business of the Husband over which he had lost control and her allegations of dissipation of assets. The value of  assets excluding the business were in a region of £3 million.

We were instructed on a complex international children matter by a Mother required by the orders of the UK courts to return the child to the UK. The Mother travelled with the child to Poland and following unsuccessful application to extend her stay there in August 2017, she decided not to return as the child disclosed sexual abuse by grandfather and the Father. In September 2018, the Polish court dismissed the father’s Hague Convention application for the child’s return on the basis of Article 13(b), a decision which the father appealed. In March 2019, the father applied to the UK High Court for a return order pursuant to the procedure set out in Article 11(6) – (8) of the Brussels IIA Regulation. Regardless of the Father’s unsuccessful Hague convention application the UK court ordered return of the child. Article 11 does not allow the court of the returning country much discretion. The Mother instructed IMD Solicitors to apply to discharge the orders for the return. We have managed to succeed with the application. It is believed there were not many applications that were successful in the UK under Article 11 and potentially no applications to discharge such orders were made as a consequence.  The High Court ultimately approved IMD Solicitors’ application for transfer of jurisdiction to the Polish courts in April 2023.

We were instructed by a Romanian mother living in the UK with her daughter. The father, residing in Romania, has been spending sporadic time with the child, turning up unannounced to take the child and even removing the child from school. In addition to the unreasonable contact schedule imposed by the father and him leaving the child alone with strangers while she was in his care, the mother grew significantly concerned when the father began making threats of not allowing the child to return to her mother from Romania and telling the child that she would soon move to Romanian and attend school there. Further, the child began exhibiting sexual behaviour in front of the mother and the maternal grandparents which became an alarming issue for the mother. The child would explain this inappropriate behaviour by stating that she had witnessed her father and his current wife engaging in adult behaviour. In addition, the child is currently ongoing therapy following emotional and psychological abuse from the father who would consistently criticise the child’s weight and eating habits. We assisted the mother in filing an application with the UK family court seeking a live with order, set contact arrangements, as well as a Prohibited Steps Order to prevent the father from failing to return their daughter to her care. The mother is supporting her application through a decision of the Romanian courts establishing the child’s residency with the mother. The matter took an unexpected turn at the FHDRA when the father informed the court that he will make an application for relocation of the child to Romania, alleging that this would be in line with the child’s wishes and feelings. The matter is ongoing pending a CAFCASS Section 7 report exploring the child’s wishes and feelings.

We represented a Spanish Mother in respect of an urgent application for a Child Arrangements Order and Specific Issue Order filed with the UK court to ask for the relocation of the child to Spain after the return of the child to the UK after she had lost proceedings under Hague convention in Spain.
The mother was seeking an order for the relocation of the child back to Spain and an urgent interim Child Arrangements Order to provide for contact with the child pending the final order. We have successfully argued that regardless of the return of the child to the UK under the Hague Convention, the mother should be allowed unsupervised overnight contact with the child. We successfully obtained a final order for the child to be relocated to Spain and live with the mother.

We were instructed to represent a Polish father in relocation proceedings following private children proceedings a couple of years prior. The father represented himself in previous proceedings which concluded with a final live with order in his favour, following unsafe behaviour from the mother towards their young child and significant safeguarding concerns from the relevant authorities as to the child spending time with the mother. Sadly, though granted permission by the UK court to have regular contact with the child, the mother showed no interest in doing so and it became apparent that she was engaging in substance abuse which was detrimental to her relationship with the child. The father reached the decision that relocating to his home country with the child would be in the child’s best interest however, he could not have done so without the mother’s approval. As the mother opposed the application, IMD Solicitors successfully argued that the relocation to Poland was in the best interest of the child, despite living in a different country to the mother. We successfully obtained the UK court’s permission for the father to return home with his daughter and they have been happily living in Poland since February 2023.