Civil Litigation Experience

Trust litigation

^{Re Esteem Settlement/Grupo Torras litigation:}^{From 2001 we were retained as Advocates for the 3rd}^{and 4th Defendants. We worked with the English solicitors, Withers. We accordingly appeared for the successful beneficiaries in the landmark Jersey case on the scope of the constructive trust remedy in this jurisdiction, the principles of tracing, and the Pauline action (a decision that is well-known beyond Jersey as being influential in the development of the law of trusts). We also appeared subsequently in the reported Esteem litigation on:}^{- the scope of discovery
- the recoverability of the profits earned in a fraud on creditors
- sham trusts and "trust-busting"}
^{SGI v Wijsmuller: This was a high-profile case raising allegations of fraud against two directors of a Jersey trust company. The 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. We were instructed by Simmonds and Simmonds and acted for a number of the defendants}
^{UCC v Bender: This is a tracing claim against the valuable trusts referred to in the SGI matter. We were 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. To date, there have been a series of procedural summonses, including an application that Anguilla is also the proper forum for the claim which lasted 2 days}
^{MacKinnon v Regent Trust Co Limited [2004] JLR 477: Another significant Jersey case on sham trusts}
^{Blenheim v Morgan (the Osiris Trust): A very valuable, multi-party and complex breach of trust case where there was an 8-10 week trial on liability. Crill Canavan acted for the trustees. The damages were settled in mid-2005}
^{The Internine and Intertraders Trust litigation. This is a substantial multi-party, multi-trust and multi-jurisdictional trust dispute worth in excess of $100m between members of a Saudi Arabian family, and involving Cayman, Jersey and Saudi/Sharia law. We act for the Sheikh in his capacities both as beneficiary and protector of the trusts. We believe that it is one of the largest and longest running hostile trust disputes currently in the Royal Court. There have already been in excess of 55 interlocutory applications, and the matter went to the Jersey Court of Appeal and to the Privy Council this year on the question of whether certain beneficiaries were entitled to trust information, and certain issues have also been to a full trial at which we were successful}
^{The Amin Trust litigation: We represented a group of beneficiaries in a claim exceeding £1m against a Jersey trust company and its directors for breach of trust}
^{The Tonga Tapu litigation: We are representing a beneficiary of a Jersey trust in a potential claim against a Jersey trust company for breach of trust in a claim estimated to be worth in the region of US$2-3m. The dispute is multi-jurisdictional and involves issues of Turkish law}
^{The Brookdale litigation: Acting on behalf of three clients making claims of negligent mis-statement against Aberdeen Asset Managers Jersey Limited in relation to the ranking of shares in a closed-ended investment trust.}
^{Fiduciary Management v Sheridan: an early and highly formative case on the scope of the remedial constructive trust jurisdiction in Jersey law}
^{A Norwich Pharmacal application: Acting for an American client in relation to a potential Norwich Pharmacal application against UBS in support of abuse of trust proceedings in Switzerland}

Cases Before Privy Council

^{Snell v Beadle [2001] 2 WLR 1180: the leading Jersey authority on sufficiency of consideration under Jersey law and the scope of the customary law exceptions to the principles (against Carey Olsen)

Channel Islands Knitwear v Hotchkiss JLR 163, a negligence case concerning safe systems of work, which he had won on appeal in the Jersey Court of Appeal (against Olsens as they then were)}