Exploring Offshore Litigation

In In the Matter of the Affinity Trust and the V Trust, the Jersey Royal Court approved the variation of a discretionary trust to reverse the irrevocable exclusion of its settlor as a beneficiary and blessed the trustee's decisions to re-admit the settlor and distribute approximately £4.8 million to him. The decision addresses the application of Articles 47 and 51 of the Trusts (Jersey) Law 1984 i...

The UK Supreme Court's judgment in Servis-Terminal LLC v Drelle overruled the English Court of Appeal's January 2025 decision and has significant potential implications for offshore practice in the BVI and Cayman Islands with respect to the issue of when unrecognised foreign judgments can be used to found a bankruptcy or winding up petition. This blog first summarises the Supreme Court decision be...

The UK Supreme Court's judgment in Servis-Terminal LLC v Drelle overruled the English Court of Appeal's January 2025 decision and has significant potential implications for offshore practice in the BVI and Cayman Islands with respect to the issue of when unrecognised foreign judgments can be used to found a bankruptcy or winding up petition. This blog first summarises the Supreme Court decision be...

In the recent English High Court decision in Wilden v Person Unknown, DHCJ Guy Vassall-Adams KC continued a proprietary and worldwide freezing order against an unknown cryptocurrency fraudster, reaffirming that crypto assets are property to which rights can attach and that exchanges which refuse to cooperate with fraud victims risk adverse costs orders. The Court also granted a Bankers' Trust disc...

The consequences of getting it wrong are severe yet the legislation often leaves practitioners without clear answers to commercially significant questions. The recent English High Court decision in Denali Corp – FZCO v Manson considers one of those unanswered questions: when a designated person holds contractual rights whose value is uncertain, do those rights constitute "funds" or an "economic re...

The recent judgment in China Export & Credit Insurance Corporation v Hyalroute Communication Group Limited (No.3) sets out the costs consequences of a dismissed winding-up petition based on a bona fide dispute. It also clarifies the scope of GCR O62, r18, which governs recovery of foreign lawyers' fees, a point Justice Asif described as "of general application within the Cayman Islands". China Exp...

Boards of offshore companies often have to make difficult commercial decisions where the contractual consequences are not clear-cut. This can be particularly challenging in structures involving SPVs, holding companies and joint venture vehicles, where contractual obligations may sit with one entity while decisions are taken within a wider group. If a decision later gives rise to a breach of contra...

The British Virgin Islands (BVI) offers two principal routes for enforcing foreign judgments: (A) statutory registration under the Reciprocal Enforcement of Judgments Act 1922; and (B) common law enforcement by fresh action, each backed by a robust suite of interim remedies and post-judgment enforcement tools that make the jurisdiction a critical venue for cross-border creditors. The right route d...

The UK Supreme Court has recently delivered judgment in Skatteforvaltningen v MCML Ltd which has helped focus the parameters of estoppel, together with previous landmark decisions, such as Tinkler v HMRC estoppel by convention (Harneys' article on Tinkler can be viewed here), and Guest v Guest, regarding proprietary estoppel (Harneys' article on Guest can be viewed here). In this article, we analy...

The recent decision of the Grand Court of the Cayman Islands in In the Matter of Logan Group Company Limited provides a useful reminder of the principles governing the sanctioning of schemes of arrangement under section 86 of the Cayman Islands' Companies Act. The Court's clear articulation of the hurdles a company must overcome, together with clarification of the Court's approach to exercising it...

The court upheld the first instance judge's key findings against two former directors but narrowed the company's recovery. It separated the client money shortfall caused by the wrongdoing from losses generated by ordinary trading. The decision also gives a practical reading of the landmark UK Supreme Court decision in BTI 2014 v Sequana regarding "creditor duty" and claims about insolvent or loss-...

In a recent decision of the English Commercial court, GLAS SAS (London Branch), as trustee of €250 million in tradeable bonds, succeeded in claims against a BVI-incorporated company and related parties for the misappropriation of shares worth approximately €85 million. The judgment is a comprehensive illustration of how English courts deploy section 423 of the Insolvency Act 1986 extraterritoriall...

In Smithers and another v Persons Unknown Category 1 and others, the English Commercial Court granted summary judgment in favour of two victims of a crypto asset fraud, ordering the return of Bitcoin and awarding compensatory damages for fungible tokens. The decision, handed down by Mr Justice Bright, offers an insight into the practical realities of crypto asset recovery. The two claimants, Ms Na...

A handwritten note, a single sentence long, with no witness, no signature block, and no mention of how property should be divided. Can such a document constitute a valid declaration of trust? The Guernsey Court of Appeal has confirmed that it can. In Ashdown v Fraser, the Court of Appeal dismissed an appeal against a Royal Court decision upholding the validity of a handwritten document by which a...

The English High Court has held that a Djiboutian container terminal operator (DCT) held over US$41 million in shipping profits on trust for the Republic of Djibouti (the Republic) in bank accounts in London[FG1.1]. This finding enabled a contractor (Soprim) with unsatisfied arbitral awards against the Republic to obtain a charging order in respect of the entire sum, despite the fact that Soprim h...

Harneys has successfully acted for the joint liquidators of Phoenix Commodities Pvt Ltd (Phoenix), Ryan Jarvis of Deloitte and Rachelle Frisby at Interpath (formerly Deloitte), in an important BVI Court of Appeal decision clarifying when a person has agreed in writing to become a shareholder. In ICM SPC v Jarvis, the Court held that section 49 of the Business Companies Act 2004 does not require a...

On 31 March, the Grand Court of the Cayman Islands delivered its judgment in the Matter of New Ruipeng Pet Group Inc, making orders concerning the appointment of restructuring officers (ROs) over the company. The judgment holds significance as it is the first to address the jurisdictional threshold that must be satisfied to make such an RO continuation order. The requirements are straightforward:...

The BVI has established a reputation for maintaining an independent and highly respected court system for the resolution of high-value commercial disputes. The courts benefit from adherence to common law principles and the appointment of experienced judges, whose expertise ensures that proceedings are conducted in accordance with internationally recognised standards of fairness and legal rigour. T...

The BVI has established a reputation for maintaining an independent and highly respected court system for the resolution of high-value commercial disputes. The courts benefit from adherence to common law principles and the appointment of experienced judges, whose expertise ensures that proceedings are conducted in accordance with internationally recognised standards of fairness and legal rigour. T...

In the recent decision of the BVI Commercial Court in Transcience Investments Limited v Greentown Holdings (BVI) Inc, the Court dismissed a jurisdiction challenge and related stay application by the Third Defendant, confirming that minority shareholder remedies under the BVI Business Companies Act, Revised Edition 2020 are to be tried in the BVI, while also clarifying how the ECSC CPR 2023 transit...

In Liao v Liao [2026] NZCA 250, the New Zealand Court of Appeal has confirmed that the presumption of advancement continues to apply to transfers from parents to adult children in New Zealand, regardless of the child's age or financial independence. The Court dismissed the appeal on the evidence, holding that the evidence of the parties' intentions clearly displaced the presumption of a resulting...

In Liao v Liao [2026] NZCA 250, the New Zealand Court of Appeal has confirmed that the presumption of advancement continues to apply to transfers from parents to adult children in New Zealand, regardless of the child's age or financial independence. The Court dismissed the appeal on the evidence, holding that the evidence of the parties' intentions clearly displaced the presumption of a resulting...

While some may think it odd to pursue an "innocent" counterparty for losses caused by fraud, Logix Aero Ireland Limited v Siam Aero Repair Company Limited demonstrates that such an approach is not doomed to fail, but the contract terms must do the heavy lifting in advance. As we observed in our Offshore Litigation Blog post on the Logix Aero decision, a breach that merely provides the setting for...

In a recent decision of the BVI Court, a connected group company was ordered to repay US$125.9 million after a last-minute intra-group loan repayment was found to be an unfair preference. In Almond v Linxens, the Court held that a payment by Tsinghua Unigroup International Co., Ltd (TUI) to Linxens, made two days before announcing a bond default, was designed to prefer an insider over the external...

The Grand Court has delivered its judgment in Re 58. com, Inc., a long running and highly contested section 238 fair appraisal dispute in the Cayman Islands. Following a six-week trial before the Honourable Chief Justice Ramsay-Hale in 2024, the Court ultimately rejected the dissenters' contended fair value of $105.56 per American Depository share (ADS) (89 per cent higher than the merger consider...