Case: Armitage v Nurse [1997] EWCA Civ 1279

Barnsley & ors v Noble [2016] EWCA Civ 799

Michael and Philip Noble were brothers who built up a substantial property empire known as the Noble Organisation. It had a complex ownership and management structure involving a number of companies and partnerships and certain trusts for the benefit of their respective families. Michael died in 2006. The executors were Philip, his widow Gillian, and John Barnsley (an accountant associated with PricewaterhouseCoopers). There was a demerger of the business side and property side of the Noble Organisation with Philip taking the business assets and Gill taking the property assets. This was ...

The Royal National Lifeboat Institution & ors v Headley & anr [2016] EWHC 1948 (Ch)

Evelyn Irene Farmer (the deceased) died on 12 January 1996 leaving a will dated 10 August 1993 (the will). The claimants were five of the ten charitable remaindermen under the trusts created under the will. They took absolutely upon the deaths of the deceased’s son and daughter in law. The deceased’s son was deceased but the daughter in law was still alive, and consequently the claimants’ interests were yet to fall into possession. The defendants were the executors of the deceased’s estate.

In 2007, the defendants wrote to the claimants enclosing an interim...

Blades v Isaac [2016] EWHC 601 (Ch)

The claimant was a member of a class of objects of a discretionary trust created by the will of Valerie Mary Lee who died on 19 June 2013. The defendants, who were partners in Tanners Solicitors LLP, were the trustees (including the sole proving executor). The relationship between the claimant and her elder sister (who had been added to the class of potential beneficiaries after the death of their mother) was affected by a history of strains between members of the family. The first defendant proved the will on 28 January 2014 in relation to an estate valued at £903,574. The second defend...

Appleby Corporate Services v Citco Trustees 17 ITELR 413

In March 2000 a settlor transferred about US$10m to a company registered in the British Virgin Islands (BVI). In December 2000 the settlor then settled the entire issued share capital of the company upon a BVI discretionary trust. The beneficiaries of the trust were the settlor’s wife and children and the trustee was the defendant company. The trust deed gave the defendant all the powers and immunities set out in what is now the Second Schedule to the Trustee Act (BVI). On the same day in December the defendant and the company entered into an investment management agreemen...