Fiduciary and trust companies

Whether a trust company is owned by a financial institution or independently, trustees are facing increasingly complex challenges. These include navigating local regulation, managing tax obligations, fulfilling fiduciary duties, resolving conflicts, dealing with warring beneficiaries, responding to litigation, and addressing international considerations. The demands placed on trustees are significant, and the need for clear, strategic legal advice has never been greater.

Practical advice for professional trustees

The private client team at Penningtons Manches Cooper has an established reputation for advising professional trustees on the wide array of problems with which they have to deal. From our junior associates through to our instantly recognisable partners, who have a formidable reputation in the private wealth industry, we are all specialist lawyers with significant fiduciary experience.

International mobility and multi-jurisdictional interests are realities of modern life for many of our clients. We have a strong international capability, assisting UK-resident and non-resident individuals, international families and family offices, and business owners in relation to their affairs across the globe. Our broad, international focus is supported by well-established links with law firms throughout the world. We are a member of Multilaw and the European Law Group, networks with representatives in over 100 countries, and many of our lawyers play leading roles in various international bodies.

An absolutely first-rate firm with excellent private client practitioners.

Our team prides itself on providing cost-effective, pragmatic solutions in a timely manner. Whether you require cutting edge tax planning or simple guidance to achieve a cost-effective solution to a fiduciary issue, we have the resources and skills to ensure that trustees can partner with us to provide a seamless service for the benefit of their clients, shareholders or beneficiaries.

How we help our clients

Fiduciary duties

Dealing with non-standard assets and trading entities

Litigation

Local regulation

Minimising exposure to liabilities

Tax planning

Penningtons is very client-centric, informed and knowledgeable. The team is good at communicating complex issues in lay terms.

Penningtons always deals with matters in a prompt and professional manner.

Recent work highlights

Mitigation of tax liabilities

Assisting US fiduciaries with possible strategies for using the US tax residence of one primary beneficiary to mitigate tax liabilities on the termination of two trusts, in particular those affecting UK beneficiaries.

Reorganisation of trust structure

Advising trustees on the reorganisation of a family trust structure for a proposed IPO of a household name business held as part of the trust fund. The business expects to list at a value of US$1 billion.

Extraction of director from BVI company

Working with the regulators of three jurisdictions and advising a trust company in order to successfully extract a director from the board of a British Virgin Islands company owned by a family subject to sanctions by the United Nations.

Complex offshore disclosures

Successfully agreeing disclosures under the worldwide disclosure facility for overseas trusts in relation to historic inheritance tax liabilities, which were particularly challenging due to a lack of historic records.

HMRC negotiations on shareholding

Engaging in complex negotiations with HMRC on the valuation of a substantial shareholding in a private family company owned beneficially by the deceased, and also by a trust.