We are delighted to present the 2023 Private Client Tax Special, where our authors discuss a variety of topical issues including taxation of art and cultural property, clean capital, and other key developments we will see over the coming year.

Thank you to our contributors, members and community partners for their support as we begin another busy year for the Private Client community. Please do keep an eye out for our quarterly magazines, with the first issue of 2023 being published in March. 

We are delighted to present the final issue of Private Client Magazine for 2022, where we explore what has been happening around the world during the past year. Our authors cover numerous topics, including technology, ESG investing, post-covid trends, and art finance. Our issue also covers recent developments from the UAE, Singapore, Italy and more.

Thank you to all of our members, contributors, and community partners for their support throughout 2022. The Private Client community continues to grow, we have more events, more magazines, and more content coming, so we look forward to working with you all in 2023.

On 24th August 2022, we welcomed the next generation of Private Client practitioners at Private Client Summer School: The Ultimate Insider's Guide in partnership with ConTrA, located in the beautiful setting of Downing College, Cambridge.

This Summer School Summary rounds up the event, what our delegates learnt, and why it is so important for the next gen to start building their network from an early stage.

We are delighted to present Issue 8 of Private Client Magazine, which discusses all things ‘Next Gen Wealth’. In this bulky edition, our authors cover a range of topics as we approach the anticipated largest inter-generational wealth transfer advisors will have seen. This issue highlights the importance for advisors to adapt, develop, and evolve to accommodate the next generation, and how they are already reshaping the future of their wealth.

Thank you to all our contributors and our community partners for their continued support, we hope you enjoy this abounding issue.

Following the success of our Crypto in Disputes event which took place on the 29th June TL4 are proud to present our Crypto Insights Document 2022. In this new format of curated content, we look to partner with firms to provide in-depth Insights, Reports, Surveys, Journals and more. If you would like to work with us on a future insight or report please do get in touch.

We are delighted to present the Offshore issue of Private Client Magazine. In this edition our contributors discuss a range of topics impacting the offshore world, including crypto, deemed domicile, and onshoring.

We also get to know some of our community better with a series of 60 seconds with interviews, finding out their strangest/most exciting story in the industry, their role models, and what they are most looking forward to for the remainder of 2022.

Thank you to our authors and community partners for their consistent support, we hope you enjoy this latest edition.

In this International Women's Month we want to shine a spotlight on a few truly amazing women in our community as they discuss their journey's to leading positions, highlight the challenges they faced in their progression, share their advice with the next generation of female practitioners as well as further action steps to #breakthebias and forge a more inclusive legal world. The Thought Leaders 4 Women Who Inspire features a series of interviews that we will be publishing over the course of the month to celebrate women and champion change. 

In this International Women's Month we want to shine a spotlight on a few truly amazing women in our community as they discuss their journey's to leading positions, highlight the challenges they faced in their progression, share their advice with the next generation of female practitioners as well as further action steps to #breakthebias and forge a more inclusive legal world. The Thought Leaders 4 Women Who Inspire features a series of interviews that we will be publishing over the course of the month to celebrate women and champion change. 

In this International Women's Month we want to shine a spotlight on a few truly amazing women in our community as they discuss their journey's to leading positions, highlight the challenges they faced in their progression, share their advice with the next generation of female practitioners as well as further action steps to #breakthebias and forge a more inclusive legal world. The Thought Leaders 4 Women Who Inspire features a series of interviews that we will be publishing over the course of the month to celebrate women and champion change. 

In this International Women's Month we want to shine a spotlight on a few truly amazing women in our community as they discuss their journey's to leading positions, highlight the challenges they faced in their progression, share their advice with the next generation of female practitioners as well as further action steps to #breakthebias and forge a more inclusive legal world. Today we launch our ThoughtLadies that inspire campaign featuring a series of interviews that we will be publishing over the course of the month to celebrate women and champion change. 

Issue 6 of Private Client Magazine is out and our authors are talking all things Contentious Trusts - from Sham trusts and the protectors’ power of consent, to NFT’s, digital art and money laundering. We also find out a little bit more about our members with a series of quickfire 60 second interviews. As we settle into the new year, 2022 will bring fresh knowledge, insights, and opportunities to bring the Private Client community together. We predict an action-packed year, and we look forward to welcoming you at some of our events both virtually, and in-person

Q) What is your key area of practice?

A) I focus my practice on dispute resolution issues, including contested estates, acting for high net worth individuals in private trust disputes, as well as commercial dispute resolution and arbitration.

Q) What is your key area of practice?

A) Commercial Dispute Resolution focused on Contentious Trusts in Guernsey and the BVI.

Q) What is your key area of practice?

A) My work is primarily personal tax advice, with a strong focus on international clients both with or looking to have a presence in the UK.

Q) What is your key area of practice?

A) Contentious trusts & probate

Q) What is your key area of practice?

A) At present I do a mixture of non-contentious estate planning and contentious trusts and probate work, with a view to specializing into the latter once I have a strong foundation in both practices.

Q) What is your key area of practice?

A) Trusts and inheritance disputes.

Q) What is your key area of practice?

A) I’m an associate in our Trust, Estate and Inheritance Disputes team. We also cover Court of Protection work alongside our non-contentious elder law specialists. I am one year qualified so my practice is still pretty broad – I would say roughly half my clients are charities looking to defend probate or inheritance claims, and the rest are a mix of private individuals and trustees/executors

Q) What is your key area of practice?

A) I specialise in contentious trusts and pensions disputes.

Q) What is your key area of practice?

A) I deal with trusts and estates disputes of all types, both onshore and offshore.

Q) What is your key area of practice?

A) Commercial chancery

Q) What is your key area of practice?

A) Dispute Resolution – Contentious Trusts and Probate

Q) What is your key area of practice?

A) Private client tax - dual qualified US/UK

Q) What is your key area of practice?

A) Everything that comes under the heading of ‘Private Wealth Disputes’. This is a broad church and covers disputes relating to trusts, estates, lifetime gifts, as well as proprietary estoppel claims, claims under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 and Court of Protection matters. My work frequently has an international, multi-jurisdictional element.

Q) What is your key area of practice?

A) I am building a varied practice across all of Chambers’ core areas of work. This includes private client, insolvency, commercial and real property disputes.

Q) What is your key area of practice?

A) I work in the international private client and trusts team at Collas Crill.

On Thursday 26th August 2021, we opened the doors to our first in-person event at ThoughtLeaders4 by kicking it off with Private Client Summer School: The Ultimate Insider’s Guide. For most delegates, this was the first event they had attended in over 18 months. For everyone in attendance at the summer school, there was a real sense of novelty to be back in the room where delegates were able to move freely, catch up, and begin to plant the seeds into relationships that will likely grow as they do in the industry.

In the latest issue of the Private Client Magazine, we present to you a ‘Year in Review’, which discusses the most significant trends and cases over the past 12 months. This edition also features an In Focus supplement on ‘Next Gen’, which tackles topical trends such as ESG, mental health, and generational wealth. Thank you to all of our authors, members, readers and Community Partners for their endless support and contribution. 2022 will no doubt bring new thoughts, ideas and trends, and we look forward to capturing new content and industry insight as we continue to navigate the legal maze.

READ NOW!

The Trustee (Amendment) Act 2021 (the "Amendment") came into force on 13 May 2021 and greatly enhances BVI's trusts legislation.

The Amendment inserts a new section 58B to the Trustee Act, expanding the court's jurisdiction to vary, add to, revoke or replace any provision of a trust. It builds on existing rules that allow the court to approve, on behalf of minor and unborn beneficiaries and other persons who are unable to approve themselves, arrangements that amend trusts.

Issue 4 is live! A year on from the launch of our Private Client Community we continue to see growth in the breadth, engagement and commitment from our members. Emerging from a pandemic leaves us with even more of
a need to look to peers for inspiration, knowledge and confidence.

Thank you to our contributors for their interpretations on the pressure trustees have faced in the face of change. We also express our gratitude to our Community Partners whose support allows us to deliver the highest quality of content.

2021 isn’t exactly starting off how we’d hoped but here we are. We remain desperate to return to this so-called ‘new normal’ but for now, we continue to adapt. The true success of our growing community is a reflection of the passion and focus of every single person involved and we continue to generate thought-provoking content that comes to their first-hand experiences.

Thank you to our authors, readers and members and our Community Partners for their continued support. We are excited to show what we have planned for later on this year so watch this space…

Read Here!

Deliver Value through Virtual Visibility.

Understand what is unique about the ThoughtLeaders4 community approach and how you can add Value to our Communities and be Visible through our Virtual platform.

To find out more about our VVV packages DOWNLOAD OUR BROCHURE

When you reflect on the Year of the Longtail, (I’m still Manx so can’t say R.A.T.), 2020, it could be the year that saved the HK private wealth market!

Though undoubtedly a year of disruption and upheaval, 2020 also brought about opportunities. When you look at Q3 2019, we were amid a period of political unrest that saw millions of people take to the streets and market commentators were highlighting the movement of wealth from Hong Kong to Singapore. I myself had noticed the transition of some peers attracted by the stable climate, more business opportunities and bigger apartments! Then towards the end of the year, we recorded our first case of COVID-19 and everything changed...

The wealth management landscape has been evolving over recent years, with international developments such as Brexit, political and environmental challenges, regulatory change and digital advancements all playing their part. Then in March 2020, the coronavirus pandemic plunged the world into uncharted waters.

James has been the commercial lead on many globally renowned Private Client events and forums  and has over 10 years of experience of curating communities across the full spectrum of the Private Client advisory market.

James’s arrival re-unites him with Laura Golding and along with the ThoughtLeaders4 directors, gives over 30 years’ experience within Private Client, and will add continued impetus to an already rapidly growing community.

Case study fact pattern for virtual event - 19th November 2020

Case study outine for TL4 Virtual Community X-Over on 19 November 2020 is a unique virtual event bringing together HNW Divorce, FIRE and Private Client experts.

This follows our previous piece, Divorced from reality: Pugachev, Webb, and illusory trusts in divorce proceedings, which was published in the August 2020 edition.

On 3 August 2020 the Privy Council handed down its eagerly awaited Webb v Webb ([2020] UKPC 22) judgment in the appeal from the Cook Islands. Its judgment grapples with several important issues, with perhaps the most eye-catching aspect

“I personally have felt for some time that non-contentious Private Client world in particular lacks a really thriving community aimed at the Next Generation of the wealthy and their advisors and this is very much what I hope this will become” - Chris Moorcroft, Harbottle & Lewis, Next Gen Wealth Founding Committee Member

ThoughtLeaders4 Next Gen Wealth initiative is delighted to bring you the Second Edition of the Private Client Magazine, showcasing the diverse interest, breadth and depth of the knowledge of our community.

Read Here!

Event slides from Death & Divorce webinar

A couple of months ago few people in the legal world had heard of virtual mediation. Thanks to Zoom’s confidential breakout room technology, virtual mediation has been widely adopted by mediators and litigators who have adapted quickly. Once the Rubicon is crossed, there is no going back.

Now that we’re all working remotely and practising social distancing, we’re seeing our clients’ meetings with candidates moving to video platforms such as WebEx, Zoom or Skype. As this is a new experience for many of us, we thought we would share our top 10 tips for successful video interviews.

In England and Wales, we are free to leave our estates to whomever we choose. This is the principle of testamentary freedom, and it is a principle the Court is keen to uphold. Whilst we have this freedom in England and Wales, we also have the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 (‘the 1975 Act’). A statute that was implemented to protect and provide for those individuals where it would be unjust for them not to receive financial provision from the deceased’s estate.

Many protectors or their advisors will already have navigated difficult issues during the recession following the financial crisis in 2008, others will have done so even earlier. The issues which arise from the physical restrictions placed on us and our movement during the current crisis may be quite unusual, but the economic issues arising from the Covid-19 crisis are likely to be similar to previous downturns.

The profound impact which the current pandemic has had on all aspects of life cannot be understated. This, of course, includes the global economic downturn; in some quarters it has been compared to, or indeed said to be likely to eclipse, the Great Depression

It is widely publicised that economists and financial observers estimate that, over the next few decades, assets worth many trillions of dollars will pass from one generation to the next - dubbed “The Great Wealth Transfer”. This passing of wealth is likely to take many forms including the transfer of individual influence over existing wealth-holding structures and as such it is clear that the fiduciary industry will experience the effects of this intergenerational change.

Regardless of whether you previously read books on pandemics, were fully au fait with the Spanish flu of 1918, and/ or at least broadly knew that epidemics on a grand scale occur about once every 100 years, the Corona Virus has shocked the world in its speed of spread and truly terrible consequences. The death toll as of this writing is almost 29,000 for the U.K. and 250,000 worldwide.

Trusts are settled for many reasons but succession planning is usually featured at the top of this list. Many settlors like the idea of leaving a legacy, of leaving their accumulated wealth in safe hands and of doing what they can to minimise if not completely eliminate family disharmony after their passing.

Collective investment vehicles are very familiar to high net worth investors (“HNWIs”) and their connected structures (trusts/family offices etc). In fact, many such HNWIs are key investors for new fund launches. Most such funds are put together by wealth managers looking to profit from the management of the fund.

The archaic nature of England’s law on the execution of Wills has been called into question in recent years, but never more so than in the last couple of months with the outbreak of Covid-19. Embracing modern technology in Will writing has moved from being something that the industry felt it “should” do, to a more urgent plea to allow those that need to execute a Will now, to do so, safely and validly. Other countries have been more reactive introduced emergency legislation to deal with the situation, but so far, England has failed to do similarly

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced the planet to grind to a halt and will have a lasting economic impact. Whilst the severity of this impact remains to be seen, we know from previous economic downturns that well-connected elites in high risk jurisdictions have often used improper methods to recoup their personal losses.

Event slides for Tax for Entertainers & Sports People 

Economic uncertainty brought by the Covid-19 pandemic will undoubtedly have a profound effect on the value of trust assets. Industry experts predict steep rises in insolvencies, affecting key industries. Many businesses may become cash-flow/balance sheet insolvent (if they are not already).

Slides from the Trusts in Divorce event on the 6th July

We are delighted to bring you our inaugural edition of the Private Clint Magazine, connecting you with the global private client community in the midst of lockdown.

Crib sheet of cases referred to in recent virtual event

The Coronavirus pandemic reminds us of Simone de Beauvoir’s “All men are mortal” Both encourage us to re-evaluate our priorities, prompting us to seize new opportunities otherwise ignored under the “business as usual” regime.

The profound impact which the current pandemic has had on all aspects of life cannot be understated. This, of course, includes the global economic downturn;  in some quarters it has been compared to, or indeed said to be likely to eclipse, the Great Depression.

Trusts are settled for many reasons but succession planning is usually featured at the top of this list. Many settlors like the idea of leaving a legacy, of leaving their accumulated wealth in safe hands and of doing what they can to minimise if not completely eliminate family disharmony after their passing.

Debt, death and divorce: often grimly cited as the estate agent’s best friends, they are also three main harbingers of trust litigation. The last of these can be particularly troublesome for trustees, who can find themselves in a difficult position when a beneficiary (or beneficiaries) of a discretionary trust divorce, especially when it is taking place in the English courts

Death and taxes may be the only certainties in this world, but exactly how tax is raised on death and on lifetime gifts is subject to tinkering and political debate. A new cross-party parliamentary report proposes radical changes to completely change, rather than just tinker around the edges, how inheritance tax would be charged in the UK and, if ever adopted, would have significant impact on your wealth and succession planning.

Parents are increasingly reluctant to provide financial assistance to their adult children because they are concerned that the money could be lost in a divorce. We are often approached by anxious parents who are keen to ensure that family wealth intended for their children and grandchildren won’t fall into the hands of their estranged son or daughter in law, should they later divorce.

While we are all aware of the highly complex legal, financial, commercial and international issues raised by HNW divorces, how much do we know about the personalities that have evolved within this section of society? What might we encounter of the psychology and emotional aspects of the parties involved? HNW and UHNW individuals face and develop a set of challenges within life that might be unfamiliar to those who do not inhabit that world of affluence. The very nature of their circumstances allows them to distance and detach themselves from the everyday concerns that occupy most of the planet, the need to survive financial demands on daily basis, to make ends meet. Consequently there is often little awareness, sympathy or empathy for the human and existential struggles that they, like every other human on the planet, have to face.