Email to a friend Print this page

Damian James - Recent Experience

The Internine and Intertraders Trust litigation: A substantial multi-party, multi-trust and multi-jurisdictional trust dispute between members of a Saudi Arabian family, and involving Cayman, Jersey and Saudi/Sharia law. Damian acts for the Sheikh in his capacities both as beneficiary and protector of the trusts, and has done since the start of the litigation in March 2003. It is believed that it is one of the largest and longest running hostile trust disputes currently in the Royal Court. The matter went to the Jersey Court of Appeal and to the Privy Council this year on the question of whether certain beneficiaries disclaimed their interests, and certain issues have also been to a full trial at which Damian was successful
SGI v Wijsmuller: a case raising allegations of fraud against two directors of a Jersey trust company made (amongst others) by the company and another director, who is an Advocate of the Royal Court (which fact made the matter a high-profile one in the Jersey legal community). These allegations were raised in the context of the contested transfer of the business of two extremely valuable trusts from the trusteeship of one Anguillan trust company (associated with the Jersey company) to another Anguillan trust company associated with the defendant director
UCC v Bender: This case is associated with the SGI matter in that it is a tracing claim against the valuable trusts referred to above. Damian was instructed in September 2005 for the Anguillan receiver of the trusts, which were frozen by order of the Jersey court to the value of $97m
Self-contained applications for Article 47 relief (the Jersey equivalent of Beddoes applications), including approvals on behalf of minors and unborns, and the like
Federated Trust Co Ltd v Kleinwort Benson [2004]: Damian is instructed on a Norwich Pharmacal application
Izodia plc v Lynch Talbot [2003-date]: Damian was instructed by all the defendants in a multi-million pound fraud case
Fiduciary Management v Sheridan [2002]: an early and highly formative case on the scope of the remedial constructive trust jurisdiction in Jersey law
Damian has also had several experiences of mediation, in particular, the Belgian case. This is a 6-party multi-million-pound will trust dispute between Belgian residents in which Damian obtained a very satisfactory outcome for the minors and unborns against Mourant, Bedell Cristin, Carey Olsen and Ogier