The trustees of two Jersey trusts known as the Piedmont Trust and the Riviera Trust made a Public Trustee v Cooper Category 2 type application for a ‘blessing’ of their decision to make distributions that would exhaust the funds of those trusts.
Detailed background to the trusts and of disputes that had previously arisen in relation to them was set out in Re Jasmine Trustees Ltd and Piedmont Trust [2015] (the 2015 judgment) and Re Piedmont Trust and Riviera Trust [2018] (the 2018 judgment).
The Piedmont Trust was a revocable discretionary trust es...
On 23 October 2020 the Bermuda Supreme Court granted a Public Trustee v Cooper Category 2 application for a ‘blessing’ of the applicant trustees’ decision to develop preliminary proposals for the future administration of an apparently very valuable group of private trusts, referred to as ‘the X Trusts’. The preliminary proposals contemplated restructuring the X Trusts by way of an unequal division of the trust assets between two branches of the beneficiary family. One branch of the family supported these proposals, the other did not.
Implementation of the trustees’ propos...
In 1994, by a series of trust deeds, Mrs Pesenti established four settlements in the Isle of Man known as the RR1, RR2, RR3 and RR4 Trusts, each of which was for the benefit of one of her children and his/her heirs. The RR2 Trust (the trust), which alone formed the subject of this case, took as its beneficiaries the appellant and her issue born before the perpetuity date, together with two named charities. The dispositive provisions of the trust required the trustees to hold the trust fund and its income on discretionary trusts for all or such one or more exclusively of the others or oth...
Continue reading "Protectors: The watchdog"
1) On the wording of the trust deed, the protectors of the trust had to act jointly. The unilateral designation of the first successor protector was therefore invalid, as was his purported designation of P as his successor protector.
2) Since the powers of the protector under the trust deed – the power to remove and appoint trustees, power to move the situs of the trust and authority to require and approve accounts – were fiduciary, and since the personal characteristics of the individual originally appointed by the trust deed were not essential to the exercise of t...
Continue reading "Protectors: An invaluable resource"
Continue reading "Protectors: An awkward position"
Continue reading "Protectors: Trust issues"
Mr French (F) was either a protector or member of the committee of trust protectors of each of nine trusts governed by the law of the Isle of Man. The trusts were set up with one or other of two American brothers and their families as beneficiaries in various combinations. Trusts set up in 1992 contained a clause (clause 8.7) ‘the trustee may grant an indemnity out of the trust fund to any committee member or to such delegatee upon such terms as the trustee may think fit.’ while those set up in 1994/1995 provided in sch 4, para (8) (b) that:
‘E...