Exploring Offshore Litigation

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...

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 considera...

The recent decision in In the Matter of the D, E, F, G and H Trusts serves as an important reminder on the nature of the confidentiality framework in trust proceedings for parties in the Cayman Islands. In a clear and helpful judgment, the Grand Court has restated the principles governing when, and how, confidentiality orders will be granted in private trust cases. Between 2007 and 2009, a former...

On 13 May 2026, the Supreme Court of New Zealand granted leave to appeal in RH & JY Trust v WorkSafe New Zealand, and considered whether a trust and/or the trustees of a trust acting collectively constitutes a "person" for statutory purposes. Although the case arises under New Zealand's Health and Safety at Work Act 2015, the underlying question, whether a trust can bear obligations and liabilitie...

The Perpetuities Act (2025 Revision) marks an important moment for Cayman Islands trust law. For settlors of new trusts, the legislation offers the power to opt out of any perpetuity limitation at inception. For those who administer existing structures, it creates a streamlined, court-supervised route to convert a fixed-term trust into one of unlimited duration. In March 2026, in what is understoo...

The Court of Appeal of England and Wales has dismissed an appeal in Logix Aero Ireland Limited v Siam Aero Repair Company Limited, holding that the voluntary acts of fraudsters broke the chain of causation between an assumed breach of a confidentiality clause and the claimant's loss. The decision restates the principles of legal causation in contract and clarifies the limited reach of London Joint...

In the recent decision of The Trustees v AB and Ors (Re the D Trust) the Cayman Grand Court granted relief under section 64A of the Trusts Act (2021 Revision) (the Act) to set aside a deed of exclusion (Deed of Exclusion) executed by previous trustees in reliance on erroneous UK tax advice. The decision adds to the growing body of authority on the statutory Hastings-Bass jurisdiction in the Cayman...

In the recent decision of Lim Yew Cheng v Guanghua SS Holdings Limited, the BVI Court of Appeal dismissed an appeal against a first instance refusal to stay BVI recognition and enforcement proceedings pending the outcome of litigation in Hong Kong. The judgment is a useful restatement of the demanding test that an applicant must satisfy where it asks the court to put its own proceedings on hold to...

In the recent decision of State House Trust v Friend Media Technology Systems the Jersey Royal Court allowed an appeal against the Master's refusal to exclude an opinion from English counsel filed in support of a summary judgment application. Commissioner Sir Michael Birt (who is also a Justice of Appeal of the Cayman Islands Court of Appeal) held that there was no requirement to obtain the leave...

The Grand Court of the Cayman Islands recently delivered its judgment in In the Matter of New Ruipeng Pet Group Inc, concerning the continuation of the appointment of restructuring officers (ROs) over New Ruipeng Pet Group Inc (the Company). While the outcome was relatively straightforward on the facts, the judgment provides much-needed guidance concerning the grounds that the Court will consider...

Litigants and prospective litigants are now armed with two new tools for discovery in the Cayman Islands, thanks to the newly-introduced Rule 7A of GCR Order 24. The new rule, which came into force on 30 March 2026 in the Cayman Islands, provides a structured mechanism to obtain discovery of documents before proceedings are commenced and from a non-party to existing proceedings. Rule 7(A) establis...

The British Virgin Islands (BVI) has long occupied a pre-eminent position among the world's offshore jurisdictions for corporate formation. Hundreds of thousands of entities are registered under the BVI Business Companies Act, Revised Edition 2020 (BCA), and the territory's appeal as a domicile for holding companies, investment vehicles, and international trading structures shows no sign of dimini...

For a creditor to place a dissolved BVI company into insolvent liquidation, the creditor must first restore the company. Good news to all creditors – AS PNB Banka (in liquidation) v Registrar of Corporate Affairs now confirms that the appointment of a registered agent is not required as a precondition to restoration where the creditor seeks restoration solely for the purpose of placing a dissolved...

On 24 March 2026, Justice Segal handed down his long-awaited trial judgment in Laggner v Uphold, dismissing a petition to wind up a Cayman Islands digital money platform on just and equitable grounds. The Petition was filed on 14 June 2022. In the four years since, the matter has been before the Court on three interlocutory occasions, proceeded to a three-week trial, and culminated in a 349-page r...

Since the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022, the use of generative AI has proliferated across every domain and litigation is no exception. Courts in various jurisdictions have grappled with the challenges posed by the revolutionary technology and provided important guidance. The decision in Guerin v O'Doherty In March 2026, the Irish Court of Appeal provided its first guidance to lawyers and liti...

Koa Capital LP and 507 Summit LLC (together, the Petitioners) presented a winding up petition on 16 January 2024 in respect of Fang Holdings Limited (the Company), a Cayman-incorporated entity. The petition was directed principally at the conduct of Tianquan Mo (Mr Mo), listed as the First Respondent, who the Petitioners alleged had engaged in wrongdoing that benefited him personally at the expens...

A long-standing question in offshore trust practice concerns the role of the protector and the nature of their power. When a trust instrument requires a protector's consent before trustees can act, does the protector simply check that the trustees' decision is lawful and rational, or can the protector form its own independent view on whether the proposed course of action serves the beneficiaries'...

In THG Plc v Zedra Trust Company, the UK Supreme Court, by 4-1, overturned the Court of Appeal and held that no statutory limitation period applies to unfair prejudice petitions under section 994 of the Companies Act 2006 (the CA). Relevant legal provisions Section 994 of the CA allows a shareholder in a company to petition to the court for a remedy on grounds that the company's affairs are being...

In Conyers Trust Company (Bermuda) Limited (as trustee of the First Trust) v The Protector of the Second Trust, the Supreme Court of Bermuda exercised its power to set aside a trustee's mistaken exercise of its fiduciary powers to unwind a transaction which would have resulted in unintended tax implications. The trustee was the trustee of two related trusts, the A Trust and the B Trust. As part of...

In a previous blog post, we discussed the first instance judgment in the Phoenix BVI litigation, where Justice Mangatal considered the formalities for becoming a shareholder under s49 of the BVI Business Companies Act, Revised Edition 2020 (BCA). That judgment has now been appealed, with an accompanying application for a stay of execution. On 27 February 2026, in ICM SPC v Jarvis, the Court of App...

In Lakhany v Hasan, the English High Court* discharged a worldwide freezing order (WFO) for an applicant's failure to adequately discharge their "full and frank" disclosure duty. This case is a welcome reminder of the consequences for artificially elevating a general suspicion of dissipation to a "real risk" before the court. The facts concerned a contractual dispute over an alleged debt of approx...

In the recent decision of Unicorn Biotech Ventures One Ltd v Unicorn Biotech Ventures Two Ltd the Grand Court has for the first time considered the issue of whether it has jurisdiction to compel parties to participate in alternative dispute resolution (ADR) against their wishes, and if so, what factors should be taken into account. The Grand Court held that it does have the power to do so and the...