Guernsey Fiduciary Forum Concludes Successfully

by Jason Gorringe, Tax-News.com, London

27 April 2007

GuernseyFinance – the promotional agency for the Island’s finance industry, in conjunction with the Guernsey Association of Trustees (GAT), hosted ‘The Guernsey Fiduciary Forum 2007’ at the Institute of Directors in London earlier this week.

Some 150 delegates attended the half-day event, with around a third from Guernsey and two-thirds from the UK. Of the latter, the majority were London-based and included some of the City’s leading fiduciary lawyers and practitioners.

There were 12 speakers – including Guernsey and UK contributors – at the event which encompassed topics such as purpose trusts, private trust companies and cellular structures for families (PCCs and ICCs), concluding with an interactive debate on blue skies thinking, including intellectual property rights and foundations.

Peter Niven, Chief Executive of GuernseyFinance, observed that:

“The audience was a ‘who’s who’ of London fiduciary lawyers and practitioners and we have been very fortunate also to have the calibre of speakers comprising top London lawyers in their field speaking on behalf of Guernsey, endorsing what we are doing and where we are going.”

The conference chairman and keynote speaker was Anthony Thornhill QC, Head of Pump Court Tax Chambers and whose areas of expertise include corporate restructuring, inheritance tax/capital gains tax planning and employee remuneration.

He told delegates:

“Guernsey is quite a hive of intellectual activity when it comes to devising new structures. You might have quite a problem deciding whether you want a hybrid company, a purpose trust or a foundation but at least you have got the choice. It seems quite a healthy approach to ask people what they want and then organize the legal structure to do it.”

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