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Malta Business Review
TRUST LAWS
Jersey amends trust laws to stay ahead of the competition
Picture: Shutterstock
By Claire Coe Smith
Jersey is on the brink of approving another
set of amendments to its trust laws, as it
continues to innovate to stay ahead of rival
jurisdictions targeting work for private clients.
The latest amendments, set to come into
force in the next few months, include changes
that will allow trusts to restrict the provision of
information to beneficiaries for the first time,
and will allow courts to approve changes to
trusts on behalf of adult beneficiaries if they
cannot be reached for consent. The latter
is particularly useful for older trusts where
beneficiaries cannot be traced, or where
there are a large number of beneficiaries and
it is difficult to contact them.
Nancy Chien, partner at the law firm Bedell
Cristin, says: “Different clients will find
different changes important. These are
deviations from general principles, such as the
principle that trustees should be accountable
to beneficiaries, but they are deviations that
can be useful.”
Such measures are what helps Jersey continue
to attract work from wealthy global families.
In the past twelve months, advisers report far
more work coming in from the Middle East,
in particular.
James Campbell is a partner at the law firm
Ogier, and says: “What’s happening in the
Middle East, in terms of instability, has been
a real catalyst for wealthy individuals in
the region deciding that now is the time to
structure their assets. We have done work
with clients from Saudi Arabia in the last year,
and for Kuwaiti families.”
Especially attractive to such clients are Jersey
private trust companies, which allow family
members to sit on the boards of trusts and
have a say in management.
The island is also seeing more high net
worth families moving in, in part thank s to
the efforts of Locate Jersey, the body set up
in 2012 to encourage inward investment
and relocations. Kevin Lemasney, director of
High Value Residency at Locate Jersey, says
the jurisdiction is attracting just over twenty
new wealthy families as residents each year,
approximately sixteen of which will originate
from the UK.
He adds, “We are seeing a younger age
dynamic coming in. Over the last four years,
of those that have been approved, 74%
have yet to reach their sixtieth birthday,
which compares to the traditional high-value
residents who we were attracting in the past,
who had often already retired.”
More HNWIs are looking to have children
rather than grandchildren on the island, he
says, and are setting up businesses, including
hedge funds and cryptocurrency funds.
This younger generation is also interested
in philanthropy, and the new Jersey charity
register will open for business in May this year,
following the appointment of the first Jersey
Charity Commissioner, John Mills CBE, in July
2017. Campbell says: “This is all part of Jersey’s
drive to make itself a centre of philanthropy
in private wealth management, given that
philanthropy and impact investing have both
been on an upward trajectory globally.”
Siobhan Crick, a director in the private client
business at Sanne, says such initiatives
continue to build Jersey’s brand: “We
have certainly seen a growing number of
enquiries coming in from the US, and our US
intermediaries, who might historically have
naturally used the Caribbean, but are now
favouring Jersey.”
Sanne, who are Jersey-headquartered, have
recently added private client capabilities
to their New York office, and Crick says,
“Whether we are benefitting from that uptick
because we have been focusing our efforts
in the US, given our presence in New York
and expertise in new directors within the
business, or it represents a broader trend,
remains to be seen. However, that market
certainly represents a greenfield opportunity
for Jersey.”
Even so, consolidation continues to take
place among the island’s trust businesses,
with Ocorian, the Jersey-based trust firm
that rebranded from Bedell Trust in 2016,
acquiring rival private client and corporate
services business Capco Trust in January.
Capco’s nearly thirty employees will join
Ocorian, which is backed by Inflexion, a
London-based private equity firm.
Crick says: “The cost of doing business is ever
greater, particularly in terms of compliance.
This will mean further consolidation in the
market, with the PE-backed firms in particular
continuing to pursue their growth-throughacquisition
model.” MBR
Credit: Citywealth
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