Amicable is the company trying to take the pain out of divorce

The UK legal system doesn’t make for easy divorce. Amicable are the start-up trying to help with that, believing that divorce can be, well, amicable, writes Martin Friel

Pip Wilson and Kate Daly want the family to win in the end (Amicable)

Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin’s announcement in 2014 that they were ending their marriage via “conscious uncoupling” was met with near-universal derision. It seemed like just the latest piece of Californian nonsense from the woman who has since bestowed her vagina-scented candles upon a bemused populace.

But put the derision aside and ignore the psychobabble and what they were doing sounds completely reasonable – trying to end their marriage without the acrimony. And it appears it is an approach that was designed specifically with the English legal system in mind.

The only grounds for divorce in England and Wales are the irretrievable breakdown of a marriage in cases of adultery, unreasonable behaviour and desertion.