Law360 Canada ( August 14, 2026, 8:39 AM EDT) -- Appeal by appellant (Wife) from a decision setting aside a separation agreement (agreement). The parties, former spouses, negotiated and executed an agreement in 2016 with assistance from a consultant and a family lawyer. The Husband later challenged specific provisions, alleging changes between a draft and the finalized agreement, asserting he did not agree to or understand those terms and seeking to set them aside. At a focused hearing, the Husband relied on lack of understanding, alleged alterations, and absence of independent legal advice (ILA). The Wife maintained the agreement reflected the parties’ negotiated intentions and emphasized the Husband’s sophistication, failure to obtain ILA despite repeated advice, and delay in challenging the agreement. The hearing judge largely rejected the Husband’s pleaded arguments but introduced a new trickery theory, finding the Wife dishonestly altered terms and concluding the Husband did not understand the agreement, setting it aside entirely. The Wife argued that the hearing judge erred in finding that she engaged in dishonesty, trickery, and deception, interjecting into the hearing and raising a theory that the Husband had not pleaded; in finding that the Husband did not understand the nature or consequences of the agreement; and, erred by failing to conclude that the Husband submitted fabricated and incomplete evidence to the court....