The institute recently issued its study paper on understanding economic abuse through family businesses in family law. It noted that family violence is often understood as physical and sexual violence, but economic abuse is a form of family violence that can have serious legal implications, particularly during a family breakdown.
BCLI staff lawyer Alison Wilkinson, who authored the paper, said that economic abuse is a form of coercive control that is probably the least well-understood and least-legislated form of family violence.
“It’s one of those topics that is less obvious to legal professionals, and also a little bit more challenging to directly tie to harm,” she said. “It takes many forms, from destroying a uniform so a person can’t go to work, or sabotaging them so they can’t study for a test and be accredited in their chosen field — there’s just such a huge range of behaviours that fit within economic abuse, and I think that’s what makes it so complicated and so nuanced and really a challenge for the legal profession.”
And when a family business is involved, it can become a tool for family violence — used to control, manipulate or deprive a partner of financial resources. Wilkinson said it can involve things such as people being removed as a director without knowledge or consent so they no longer have access to bank accounts — and even people destroying the value of a company so when they get to court they say they can’t pay child or spousal support.
“And these businesses are usually small, mainly the couple and maybe the odd staff member here and there — and because of that, there’s such a high level of control that then it can be used in ways that a larger business wouldn’t work if you’re a big company with a lot of shareholders,” she said. “It’s more those really small businesses where the person has so much power and so much authority over all of those different decisions that it really is an extension of them, and then it becomes a tool for them to engage in these behaviours.”
The BCLI highlighted several challenges in looking at the use of family businesses as a form of economic abuse, with Wilkinson saying a major part of that challenge is the fact that it is such a new area.
“A big concern involves the legal profession’s ability to identify this as economic abuse — in reading the case law or after having conversations with people, very seldom did anyone say this is a form of family violence,” she said. “And a lot of times, the problem is that people also don’t understand coercive control.”
And another issue Wilkinson identified is the fact that accessing justice is expensive — and if someone is being economically abused, they don’t have the resources to go to court.
“And we talked to a lot of people who didn’t have those resources, so they just gave up,” she said. “They knew they had rights and should keep fighting, but they just didn’t have any possible way of doing it — and that was sad to hear.”
But the study paper does not provide any recommendations for future action, with Wilkinson saying more information is needed about how the issue of economic abuse through family business is presenting itself and impacting people.
“Before we make recommendations, we really want to hear a lot of different voices — we want to do public consultation and do a very good analysis,” she said. “Because this is such a novel and emerging area, not just in Canada but around the world, we definitely need that information. I’m hopeful this paper will be a catalyst for more research and more voices to come forward with their experience and bring about more discussion.”
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