Wills & Trusts Law Reports | November 2015 #154The claimants brought a part 8 claim for the determination of three issues in relation to a family trust of land on which was operated a family-run plant nursery business. The nursery business was operated through a limited company which was separately owned from the trust and the company paid no rent to the trust for occupation of the land. All parties to the claim were adult members of the family and comprised all of the existing beneficiaries of the trust. The fourth defendant represented the interests of potential unborn beneficiaries. The relief sought by the claimants was unopposed...
Wills & Trusts Law Reports | October 2015 # 153MFGUK was part of the MF Global group which carried on business as broker-dealers in financial markets throughout the world. The group’s principal operations in London were carried on by MFGUK. It and other companies in the group entered insolvency proceedings in the United States and England on 31 October 2011. Administrators were appointed under the Investment Bank Special Administration Regulations 2011. MFGUM held funds in two different capacities – money for clients as trustee of the client money trust, and money beneficially on its own account. On their appointment, ...
Wills & Trusts Law Reports | September 2015 #152This was the hearing of an application for strike out of a Part 20 claim or alternatively summary judgment in favour of the defendants where the underlying proceedings related to two separate trusts: a settlement of land and other assets created on 18 February 1967 by Charles (the settlement) and a will dated 15 March 1998 of Charles’s son, John, who died on 20 December 2004 (the will fund).
The claimant in the underlying proceedings had sought declaratory relief regarding the construction of a March 2007 deed, alternatively rectification of it, whereby the trustees of the will fu...
Wills & Trusts Law Reports | May 2015 #149This decision concerned the construction of a trust deed dated 28 November 1944 (the deed) made between Eric Max Warburg on behalf of the Warburg family, Viscount Lee of Fareham on behalf of the Warburg Society, and the University of London (UOL). There arose questions about the scope of the deed, the ownership of property, the status of funding and the propriety of the administration by UOL under the deed. UOL brought a construction summons to determine these questions at the behest of HM Attorney General (the second defendant). The first defendant was Professor John Prag, of the Univer...
Sukhninder Panesar explains the importance of the court’s recent decision in Cotton v Cardigan [2014] to trustees’ powers ‘From a practical point of view, the decision reaffirms the need for trustees and their legal advisers to make sure that they have prepared and presented such applications with detailed evidential matters.’ The much publicised sale of …
Continue reading "Trustees: A momentous decision"
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Amanda Mochrie and Erin Trimble-Cregeen highlight how trustees can protect themselves from the consequences of an ‘insolvent’ trust ‘Trustees and their advisers would be well advised to review those trusts where they are a Guernsey trustee of a Jersey law trust and to consider changing the law of the trust.’ The recent judgment in the …
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Catharine Bell and Nicole Aubin-Parvu review a case that highlights the importance for trustees of impartiality and independence when handling EBTs ‘There was, in fact, evidence to suggest that the trust was intended to be operated in breach of trust and that the scheme required such breach to achieve its purpose.’ The decision of the …
Continue reading "Trustees: A red card?"
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Brudenell-Bruce offers salutary lessons about the self-dealing rule, as Simon Atkinson explains ‘Brudenell-Bruce provides a restatement of the law relating to estoppel by deed and applies principles of construction to deeds and consent orders.’ For chancery practitioners Brudenell-Bruce (Earl of Cardigan) v Moore and Cotton [2012] provides valuable guidance in a number of areas. The …
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Marilyn McKeever discusses the implications of the Supreme Court decision in Futter v Futter and Pitt v Holt ‘The Hastings-Bass jurisdiction applies where the trustee or other person has failed to take into account any relevant considerations or took into account irrelevant considerations and would not have taken the action they did but for that …
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Wills & Trusts Law Reports | June 2013 #130The appellant beneficiary (B) appealed from the order of Judge J R Finch made in the Royal Court of Guernsey on 15 March 2012 granting liberty to the respondent trustee (T) to disclose information and documentation to law enforcement authorities in France inter alia to protect the interests of T in the context of an ongoing criminal investigation.
T was the subsidiary of an international banking group and was the trustee of two trusts created in February 1989 for the benefit of the children and grandchildren of the settlor (S). S had died in 2001. Shortly afterwards, the...
