Daniel & anr v Tee & ors [2018] WTLR 799

Wills & Trusts Law Reports | Autumn 2018 #173

The defendants were professional solicitor trustees of a trust established by the will of the claimants’ father. The claimants were the beneficiaries of the will trust, who were minors when their father died. The deceased’s will provided that the claimants’ shares would be held on trust for them until they turned 25, so the defendants invested the trust fund with the assistance of professional investment advice given by Taylor Young Investment Management Ltd (Taylor Young).

The claimants subsequently sought compensation from the trustees in the sum of £1,476,076 on the basis that ...

Lloyds Trust Company v Fragoso & ors [2013] JRC 211

Wills & Trusts Law Reports | January/February 2017 #166

The representor was the trustee (T) of a Jersey law governed discretionary trust (R) established in 1999 and valued at £402,000. The first respondent was the settlor (S). The class of beneficiaries included S’s wife and three children.

When R was established, S described himself as a civil engineer and informed T that the funds settled were proceeds of engineering consultancy contracts which he had worked on over the last 20 years. He did not disclose that he held public office in Mozambique.

In 2010, T discovered that a company had been convicted in England of paying bribe...

Credit Agricole v Papadimitriou [2015] UKPC 13

Wills & Trusts Law Reports | January/February 2016 #156

In 2000 Mr Robin Symes, an art dealer, sold for US$15m a collection of art deco furniture belonging to the respondent. The respondent did not give her consent to the sale, and Mr Symes had no right to sell the collection. US$10.4m of the sale price was paid to a Panamanian company, Tradesk Limited. Of this, US$10.3m was then paid into an account at the appellant bank through a Liechtenstein foundation called Pataco Foundation. The monies were deposited in the Gibraltar branch of the appellant and credited to the account of Lombardi Corporation, which was a British Virgin Islands company ...

Cadogan Petroleum plc & Ors v Mark Tolley & Ors [2011] EWHC 2286 (Ch)

Wills & Trusts Law Reports | November 2015 #154

The claimants, who were a group of companies engaged in the business of exploration and exploitation of gas reserves in Ukraine, brought claims against, inter alia, the fourth and fifth defendants (Vivcharyk defendants), respectively the former chief operating officer and the company controlled by him, in relation to alleged bribes or secret commissions which, directly or indirectly, they received in connection with commercial contracts for the supply or acquisition by the Cadogan Group of drilling equipment and services, two gas plants and a company. Proceedings were issued on ...

Money Laundering: Vigilance at all times

Simrun Garcha discusses the implications of Credit Agricole Corporation and Investment Bank v Papadimitriou [2015] ‘The court accepted the argument that “the arrangement could not have any commercial purpose other than money laundering” and the complex structure involved would have caused a reasonable bank to become suspicious of improper motive.’ The Privy Council’s recent decision …
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Book Review: It’s not all academic

Mark Feeny reviews the 33rd edition of the classic Snell’s Equity As a seasoned campaigner, now into my fourth decade of trust practice, I imagine that a lot of what I do on a daily basis is guided by instinct. That instinct has been honed by learning from the many mistakes which lie in wait …
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Novoship (UK) Limited & ors v Nikitin & ors [2014] EWCA Civ 908

Wills & Trusts Law Reports | November 2014 #144

Mr Mikhaylyuk (M), a manager for the first respondent, NOUK, with responsibility for negotiating the charters of vessels owned by companies within the Novoship group, the remaining respondents, owed fiduciary duties to all the respondents. M had arranged a series of schemes by which he defrauded his principals and enriched himself and others by the payment of bribes given to him by those who chartered his principals’ vessels. These schemes included one concerning vessels chartered to companies owned and controlled by Mr Ruperti (R) which R then sub-chartered at substantially higher rates...

FHR European Ventures LLP & ors v Cedar Capital Partners LLC [2014] UKSC 45

Wills & Trusts Law Reports | September 2014 #142

The claimants engaged Cedar Capital Partners LLC (Cedar) to act as their agent in negotiating the purchase by FHR European Ventures LLP of the issued share capital of Monte Carlo Grand Hotel SAM (which owned a long leasehold interest in the Monte Carlo Grand Hotel) from Monte Carlo Grand Hotel Ltd (vendor). As such an agent, Cedar owed a fiduciary duty to the claimants, notwithstanding which it entered into an exclusive brokerage agreement with the vendor to provide for the payment of a €10m fee following completion – the vendor was paid €211.5m when the purchase was completed on 2...

Secret Commissions: Unauthorised profits – an update

Mark Pawlowski looks at a landmark ruling on how an agent who has taken advantage of a bribe or received a secret commission in breach of their fiduciary duties holds the amount received ‘So, what has been the subject of judicial and academic controversy for over two centuries has now, at last, been authoritatively put …
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Bribery And Constructive Trusts: Channelling dirty money

Lloyds Trust Co (CI) Ltd v Fragoso [2013] provides clarification for Jersey on how trustees hold assets derived from bribes in a trust. Alexa Saunders gives the lowdown ‘In Fragoso [2013], the Royal Court of Jersey was in a position to make its own decision as to whether to follow Reid [1993] or Sinclair [2011].’ …
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