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Jersey, Channel Islands Case Favors Spouse with Offshore Trusts

By Jeremy Morley

a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.annefrankguide.com/en-GB/content/channelmap.jpg"img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 200px;" src="http://www.annefrankguide.com/en-GB/content/channelmap.jpg" alt="" border="0" //aspan style="font-family: arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Arial;font-size:100%;" lang="EN" The st1:street st="on"st1:address st="on"Royal Court/st1:address/st1:street in Jersey, st1:place st="on"Channel Islands/st1:place has issued a key ruling in favor of a wealthy Indian jewelry magnate with substantial assets in offshore trusts, in a case known as i style=""Mubarak v Mubarak./i The Court ruled that assets held in offshore trusts could be released to ex-spouses only if the trustees had the power to do so.o:p/o:p/span p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 50%; margin-bottom: 15.6pt; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; font-family: arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"span style=";font-size:100%;" lang="EN" The Financial Times (article dated September 3 2008) suggests that wealthy business people may now be more encouraged to exploit st1:place st="on"Jersey/st1:place and other tax havens in an attempt to shield themselves from big money divorce payouts.o:p/o:p/span/p p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 50%; margin-bottom: 15.6pt; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; font-family: arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"span style=";font-size:100%;" lang="EN" The Jersey case followed more than seven years of litigation in England ? described by the English courts as ?notorious? and ?Titanic? -- culminating in a decision of the Court of Appeal last year in which that Court vehemently criticized the husband?s conduct and upheld a large award against him. However the st1:place st="on"Jersey/st1:place court has now allowed the husband to avoid many of the consequences of the English awardo:p/o:p/span/p p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 50%; margin-bottom: 15.6pt; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; font-family: arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"span style=";font-size:100%;" lang="EN" In recent years the courts in st1:place st="on"st1:country-region st="on"England/st1:country-region/st1:place have issued several judgments in favor of ex-spouses who were married to wealthy spouses with assets in offshore trusts. However the st1:place st="on"Jersey/st1:place ruling shows that without the cooperation of the courts in the offshore jurisdictions the divorce rulings in favor of ex-spouses might not be worth all that much.o:p/o:p/span/p p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 50%; margin-bottom: 15.6pt; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial;"span style=";font-family:Arial;font-size:10;" lang="EN" span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" span style="font-family: arial;"The Jersey case could lead more business people to put their money in so-called tax havens such as the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man and /spanst1:country-region style="font-family: arial;" st="on"Britain/st1:country-regionspan style="font-family: arial;"?s /spanst1:place style="font-family: arial;" st="on"Caribbean/st1:placespan style="font-family: arial;" overseas territories in an attempt to ring-fence their wealth from divorce settlements./span/spano:p/o:p/span/p

Full post as published by International Family Law on September 04, 2008 (boomark / email).