Simon Taube KC successful in Privy Council Investec Trust case
25th Apr 2018
Ten Old Square’s Simon Taube KC successfully acted for Investec Trust (Guernsey) Limited, a trustee subsidiary of the Investec banking and asset management company, in its eight-year case against the current trustees of the Tchenguiz Discretionary Trust and the liquidators of Investec Trust’s former subsidiary BVI Companies. 
On 23 April 2018 the Privy Council rejected the current trustees’ claims that Investec Trust had acted in breach of trust, and it held that Investec Trust was not personally liable to repay money lent to Investec Trust when it was previously trustee of the TDT. Since Investec Trust was a trustee of a trust governed by Jersey law, article 32 of the Trust (Jersey) Law meant that Investec Trust was only liable in a representative capacity as trustee for its debts to the BVI Companies.
The Privy Council decided that, under the rules on conflicts of law in Guernsey, the Guernsey courts must follow the trust law of Jersey, even if the debt contracts were governed by a system of law other than the law of Jersey.
In a new and striking development in the law, the majority of the Privy Council held in its landmark judgment that “the time has come to recognise that as a general rule the common law will recognise and give effect to limitations of liability which arise under an entity’s constitutive law by reason of the particular status or capacity in which its members or officers assume an obligation”.
To read the full Privy Council judgment, click here.
A specialist onshore and offshore chancery litigation expert, Simon’s special expertise includes the fields of UK and foreign trusts and estates, capital tax planning and trust taxation, and fiduciary duties generally. He also has wide experience in property, securities, and professional negligence matters and he often appears in the courts in the Bahamas, Bermuda, Cayman and Hong Kong and frequently advises in relation to other jurisdictions including Jersey and Guernsey.
Simon Taube KC
Call 1980
