Offshore Litigation Blog

In a welcome decision of the BVI Commercial Court in its recent decision in the case of Ieremeieva v Estera Corporate Services (BVI) Limited, the court considered and clarified the positions as a matter of BVI law on (i) the requirements for establishing a person as a trustee de son tort and (ii) the reference date in determining whether an invalidated trust instrument is to be treated as invalidated ex tunc (from the date that it was executed) or ex nunc (from the date on which it was invalidated).

In the High Court, Lifestyle Equities, (Lifestyle) successfully claimed that Hornby had infringed their trademarks. Lifestyle also successfully sued the Ahmeds personally, alleging they were jointly liable by sharing a common design with Hornby. Trademark infringement uses strict liability, which meant that there was no need for Lifestyle to prove that the Ahmeds knew of or intended the infringement.

In the recent decision of AA v JTC (Cayman) Limited, the Grand Court of the Cayman Islands sets out for the first time the principles applicable to an application by an enforcer of a STAR trust for the Court’s approval of a ‘momentous’ decision in relation to the proposed exercise of the enforcer’s fiduciary powers.

This article will examine how a trustee can seek the court’s approval of its participation in any such litigation by ordering that the trustee be indemnified in respect of costs from the trust funds.

In the recent decision of G Trust, the Cayman Islands Grand Court had little hesitation in directing that the trustee could apply to restrain certain beneficiaries from pursuing an application in Hong Kong to appoi…

The recent English case of Grosskopf v Grosskopf concerned an application by trustees for a stay of claims brought against them by a beneficiary. The beneficiary alleged misconduct by the trustees and sought the appointment of a judicial trustee pursuant to the Judicial Trustees Act 1896.

The Cayman Islands Trusts (Amendment Act) 2019 introduced a new statutory Hastings-Bass jurisdiction at s.64A of the Trusts Act which became operational on 14 June 2019. There has been no unreported or…

On 31 March 2023, in the case of Re Gatecoin Limited (in liquidation), the Honourable Madam Justice Linda Chan of the Hong Kong Court of First Instance ruled on an application by the liquidators of Gatecoin seeking directions on the characteristics of cryptocurrencies and fiat currencies and whether the cryptocurrencies held should be regarded as being held on trust for Gatecoin’s account holders. The decision brings Hong Kong in line with other common law jurisdictions whose courts have already decided that issue, including England and Wales, New Zealand and the BVI. This is further acceptance by the common law courts that, despite their unusual features, cryptocurrencies and digital assets do not sit outside of the law.

In the recent English High Court decision of Perez v Equiom Trust Corporation (UK) Ltd and Equiom Trust (South Dakota) LLC [2022], the claimant revoked an English law governed trust of which the defendants were the trustees, and sought declarations that the revocation was valid, and that the defendants held trust assets on bare trust for the claimant and at her direction.