A couple living on opposite sides of the Pacific separated. The husband petitioned in Shanghai for divorce, seeking custody of their only daughter. Rather than answering on the merits, the firm’s cross-border team challenged jurisdiction — the procedural fulcrum of the case.

Approach

Under the Civil Procedure Law, jurisdiction in a divorce involving a foreign element turns on domicile, habitual residence and the location of the marriage. The firm established that the Shanghai court was not the appropriate forum, which changed the balance of the negotiation and produced a settlement on custody, maintenance and property far better than the client could have obtained by litigating on the merits in Shanghai.

Note

In cross-border family disputes the procedural question is often worth more than the substantive one: it decides where, before it decides what.