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Disputes involving trusts and private wealth are increasingly common. As well as being time consuming and reputationally damaging, they can be distressing for those involved and require careful and sensitive handling where they touch upon intensely personal matters. They are also massively expensive. At the first indication of a trust dispute, many people, even professionals, turn a blind eye, hoping it will go away or resolve itself of its own accord. That is not usually the case. Ignoring the problem is hardly ever the answer, and before long things are beyond control, when a proactive approach involving firm but sympathetic dialogue, might have reconciled the parties’ positions, and removed need for the court.

Trust Corporation International is recognised as a leader in the field of fiduciary disputes resolution. Being located in Guernsey, a jurisdiction with a strong court system experienced in hearing and adjudicating on trust disputes, we are ideally placed to deal with disputes affecting our existing clients, but also to step in as an independent trustee, to resolve a problem which might have deadlocked a structure, or to take other steps the existing fiduciary is for whatever reason, unwilling or unable to take.

Examples of the kind of dispute in which we have been (or would be) able to assist, include:

  • Acting as an independent trustee to oversee the final application of a fund’s assets on winding up
  • Replacing an existing trustee to undertake a comprehensive review of the tax issues affecting a structure
  • Stepping in to issue proceedings on behalf of a trust, where the previous trustee was in a position of conflict
  • Acting as the independent trustee of a pension scheme
  • Overseeing as trustee, litigation undertaken by or against a company the shares in which are held by the trust
  • Taking steps to recover assets misappropriated from a structure by a third party
  • Administering illiquid or insolvent structures

Many of our directors and other staff have qualifications in law or accountancy. Whilst we do not offer legal advice, that experience enables them to add very real value to the resolution of any private wealth dispute, by applying to the matter a combination of their detailed legal or tax knowledge and their experience as professional fiduciaries. As experienced and knowledgeable practitioners, they are also able to work very effectively and at a high level with other professionals, such as lawyers or accountants, whose expertise is often also required to resolve a matter. In short, our approach is simple; we aim to deal effectively and sensitively with any trust dispute or similar issue, with a view to resolving it in the simplest and most effective manner for the benefit of those affected by it. Our hope is that only rarely will that necessitate court proceedings, as alternative disputes resolution procedures are particularly well suited to trust disputes.

Within Trust Corporation International we have invested to ensure a number of our staff work almost exclusively to provide this vital yet infrequently available type of service. In so doing, they can call upon expertise elsewhere within the business, to offer a highly professional, sensitive and informed approach to contentious situations involving private wealth.