Case Update (8 Sept 2026): A.C. v. M.F.; NY recognizes English divorce but defers recognition of English financial order pending proceedings in London
The parties married in New York and moved to London, where the Mother still lives with their two children. In 2023, the English High Court issued a final financial order. It divided the assets under the parties' New York prenup and set child maintenance of about £60,000 per month through 2039. It also required the Father to secure that maintenance with a bank guarantee. After a long default, the Father has paid the lump sum in full and is current on maintenance, but he has never obtained the guarantee. Three applications are pending in England, set for a final hearing in November 2026: the Mother seeks to replace the guarantee and to capitalize maintenance, and the Father seeks to reduce both obligations. In New York, the Mother moved to recognize the English Decree Absolute and the financial order. The Father consented to recognition of the divorce but opposed recognition of the financial order.
Importantly, the court confirmed that New York's version of the Uniform Foreign-Country Money Judgments Recognition Act (CPLR Article 53) does not apply. CPLR 5302(b)(3) excludes divorce, support, and other domestic relations judgments. Article 54, which covers sister-state judgments, does not apply either. What governs is comity, and the court stressed that the Article 53 exclusion is not a bar to recognition. It leaves foreign family judgments to New York's generous comity case law. Under that standard, the court recognized the divorce. It held that CPLR 3213 is an available procedure, and that the fact that a support order can be modified in the future does not, by itself, defeat recognition. However, it denied recognition of the financial order as premature, without prejudice. The only obligations still in play, maintenance and the guarantee, are exactly what the English court will decide in November. With no arrears owed and no enforcement sought, deferring costs the Mother nothing and avoids New York domesticating obligations that may soon no longer exist.
The opinion does not address why the Mother did not use the 2007 Hague Child Support Convention, which New York implements through Article 7 of its UIFSA. The likely answer is scope: the Convention covers only maintenance, not the divorce, the property division, or likely the bank guarantee. Still, for the child maintenance alone, it might have been the better tool. Its grounds for refusing recognition are limited, and a pending modification in the country that issued the order is not one of them.
