When taking stock of the markets over the last 12 months, it is safe to argue that tougher times must inevitably be afoot. While upheavals wrought by the pandemic may have largely receded into the rearview mirror, the volatility that has come to characterise recent times shows no sign of abating, with the Ukraine war leading to energy insecurity and the cost of living crisis, the need to navigate ever-changing Russian sanctions, as well as the looming threat of a global recession.
However, even in this tumultuous environment, offshore law firms continue to defy the odds, with 2022 only building on the growth seen by many in previous years. ‘Despite expecting a challenging economic environment, income has been up across service lines and sectors, without exception,’ states Edward Mackereth, global managing partner at Ogier, echoing the sentiment of many offshore law firm leaders.
Stephen Leontsinis, Collas Crill’s Cayman Islands managing partner, agrees: ‘2022 was a good year for Collas Crill. We comfortably hit our target of double-digit revenue growth and experienced a real Covid bounce-back across many of our markets.’ Jonathan Green, global managing partner of Maples, is equally bullish: ‘The Maples Group, including our global law firm, enjoyed another strong year in 2022 across essentially all practice areas and service lines.’
For Harneys’ new global managing partner William Peake, who stepped into the role in January 2023, the year exemplified the firm’s focus on ‘sustainable growth’, while Ingrid Pierce, global managing partner of Walkers, highlights the ‘flight to quality’ which has led to a strong year for the firm. Meanwhile, Jonathan Rigby, Mourant’s global managing partner, showcases the firm’s ‘excellent progress’. Christian Luthi, chair of Conyers, is also sanguine, describing an active year for the firm with ‘busy-ness levels remaining high’.
It has not all been smooth sailing though, with 2023 clearly off to a slower start due to trepidation in transactional markets. As Green notes: ‘By comparison, the first half of 2023 saw a softer start to the year for some of our transaction-focused legal service lines as clients and markets adjusted to a higher inflationary and interest rate environment.’
Leontsinis agrees: ‘2023 has started tentatively but various local changes to legislation are providing us with good opportunities and new clients.’ Mackereth adds: ‘The equity market remains weaker and IPO activity therefore remains down, with many companies and investors taking a wait-and-see approach to their listing plans.’
Unpicking the tangled ball
Given rising interest rates and turbulent financial markets resulting from the war in Ukraine, the impact on the work handled by law firms can be felt across the board.
‘The war, and the inflation that has sprung from the war, are undoubtedly having an impact on the level of economic activity,’ comments Mackereth. ‘We continue to work with businesses and governments on the disentanglement of Russian interests in western investment areas. On a macro level and since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the last 15 months have involved a continental-scale unpicking of investment threads from the tangled ball of western economies.’
Skyrocketing interest rates in particular stand out as a key driver of market trends, with multiple firms reporting a significant impact on various strands of work. Whether it be the collapse of the SPAC market or a substantial decline in bank lending, its effects can be felt in all elements of practice.
‘The high interest rates across the globe in the second half of 2022 and in 2023 to date have had an inevitable impact on our lender side finance work,’ notes George Weston, a corporate partner in Harneys’ BVI office. ‘Interest rates have also led to a decline in stock market valuations, which has a chilling impact on both initial and secondary offerings (helped sadly by an interventionist approach from US regulators).’
‘The war, and the inflation that has sprung from the war, are undoubtedly having an impact on the level of economic activity.’
Edward Mackereth, Ogier
Leontsinis agrees: ‘It would be fair to say that lending activity is still slow across all our regions due to global interest rates, and this is impacting our banking and finance, and local property practices. On a recent trip to the US to meet clients, where the federal rate is even higher than it is in the UK, the lack of appetite for financing transactions was noted both on the private equity and borrower sides. Thus our outlook this year is cautious.’
However, in some circumstances, private capital is stepping in to take the place of the reluctant banks. ‘What we’ve seen is a lot of private capital flooding into the markets and that’s affecting a bunch of different practice areas,’ states Pierce, ‘so it’s probably fair to say that there’s been a bit of a change in the number of private capital and private equity houses that are now essentially functioning as non-banks in the lending space. That’s fuelling quite a lot of activity.’
Insurance work is also seeing a notable uptick, particularly in Bermuda and Cayman, with Luthi commenting, ‘A positive confluence of various factors continues to drive growth in the Cayman Islands insurance and reinsurance market. It’s an exciting time for the jurisdiction.’
Boom and bust
Interest rates have also helped to continue the increase in restructuring and insolvency work, which initially sprang up as a result of the pandemic.
As Peake remarks: ‘Global interest rates have led to a surge in insolvency and restructuring work and, noting my track record as a poor man’s Nostradamus, we see the continued squeeze on credit availability driving this further.’
Mackereth adds: ‘Globally, the steadiest flow of restructuring work post-Covid so far has been from the Asian markets, primarily impacting teams in Cayman, BVI and Hong Kong (in respect of BVI/Cayman work originating from Asian markets). We continue to see investors, investment managers and credit institutions, who are showing less tolerance for liquidity excuses, starting to take strategic steps to address these.’
Firms are also seeing an increase in Cayman structuring work involving Latin American funds generally, whether that be investing out of Latin America or into it, and the introduction of the new Jersey insolvency regime in early 2022, which created an additional winding up procedure and also adapted the processes and eligibility criteria for appointing a liquidator, has also catalysed the market.
That being said, the contentious restructuring work that has been anticipated to follow in the wake of the offshore market’s post-Covid insolvency and restructuring boom, has still yet to materialise.
From a Caribbean perspective, the crypto boom of recent years hit a bump in the road following the dramatic, large-scale collapse of Bahamas-based crypto exchange FTX in late 2022, fanning the flames of increasing scepticism surrounding digital assets and cryptocurrencies, and their legitimacy. For offshore jurisdictions, the fallout was largely avoided thanks, in part, to the Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASP) regulatory regimes enacted in 2022 and 2023. The regulations implemented require all VASP entities registered in the various jurisdictions to comply with anti-money laundering, counter-terrorist financing and anti-proliferation finance legislation.
Notes Mackereth: ‘We’ve already seen a wave of VASP regulation which has been largely welcomed and the recent collapse of FTX and other VASP-related companies, in part due to a lack of effective regulatory oversight, will bring more regulatory scrutiny, and ultimately, supervision of businesses operating in the digital asset space.’
‘Data security has been on clients’ minds over the last several years and it’s really coming to the fore now.’
Ingrid Pierce, Walkers
However, as highlighted by Pierce, which jurisdiction comes out on top is still in play: ‘We do see the VASP regimes in different jurisdictions becoming more relevant and the different jurisdictions are jockeying for position to become a leading player in the field, while users and providers of digital asset services are looking for consistency and clarity of regime and regulation.’
Recent uncertainties aside, activity in the crypto and digital asset space continues apace. Pierce comments: ‘It’s just going to keep expanding and developing. We’ve seen from our own client base and also onshore users with interest in the digital asset space that they are setting up arms that focus almost exclusively on digital assets, even if it’s not their main focus. Everybody wants to have a foot in the door. While it’s just another asset class for some, for others it’s the whole raison d’être of the business.’
Some approach the topic with more scepticism: ‘With the large-scale collapse of FTX in the Bahamas, extensive insolvency litigation is likely to flow from this, mostly in the UK and the Caribbean. The VASP-related Three Arrows Capital insolvency, where we act for the liquidators in the BVI, is also probably a sign of things to come,’ says Mackereth.
Not to be left out, the Channel Island bases are also moving into that market, as Ellie Crespi, managing partner of Collas Crill’s BVI office explains: ‘Guernsey’s new regulations regarding VASPs have made clear the types and shapes of crypto-structure that the island is willing to engage with. It is likely to be only a matter of time before the first disputes start to arise around this but as our legislation is relatively forward-thinking, we expect these to be easier in the Channel Islands than in some other jurisdictions where the application of new issues to antiquated legislation is likely to make matters more challenging.’
‘While ESG continues to grow in importance and is increasingly pervasive across our advisory work, we’ve yet to see ESG-related disputes take off in the way they have onshore.’
Ellie Crespi, Collas Crill
Expanding into technology more generally, firms are also seeing a notable uptick in data protection and cyber security work with digital technologies, AI (including ChatGPT) and various platforms for communication becoming increasing prevalent in the workplace. ‘Data security has been on clients’ minds over the last several years and it’s really coming to the fore now,’ comments Pierce. ‘This has focused professionals’ minds much more on questions like: What are we doing? What are we allowing our people to do? Should we do that? How do we regulate that internally and make sure that our clients’ data is safe and secure?’
Regulation and reputation
The move in recent years to clean up the reputation of the offshore markets following a spate of criticisms has placed regulatory advice at the forefront of law firm offerings. Says Luthi: ‘Our regulatory teams in all jurisdictions have been busier over this past year. The Cayman Islands and BVI are now enhancing their regulatory frameworks too, and this will continue to be a source of increased regulatory work.’
Mackereth adds: ‘There has been a relentless rise of regulatory burden on businesses as countries try and ensure they pass through Moneyval’s assessments unscathed. That is a mixed blessing. As a regulated business we are facing ever higher regulatory burdens and costs, but as an adviser to businesses on regulatory issues, we are part of that ecosystem. For us, our regulatory specialists of all descriptions have been busier than ever, and we don’t expect that to stop.’
Moneyval, a Council of Europe committee which evaluates compliance with anti-money laundering measures and efforts to counter the financing of terrorism, is lining up its next inspection of Guernsey for 2024, while the previous inspection of the Isle of Man led to what ultimately amounted to a ‘good progress, but could do better’ report card in 2022.
Similarly, the introduction of economic substance rules throughout various offshore jurisdictions in 2019 started a wave of regulatory change, although the initial confusion surrounding the rules has now abated. ‘There were lots of debates around what it means to have substance. Was it true substance in terms of boots on the ground or was it economic substance, and if it was economic, was that going to be a real sea change for users of the jurisdictions or not?’ states Pierce. ‘The noise has really gone out of that discussion now. I think people have found the regime palatable, they understand it and can comply with it, so other discussions have come to the fore.’
As Green remarks: ‘This confirmation recognises that the jurisdiction has a robust and effective AML/CFT regime, and we anticipate this removal will also trigger the jurisdiction’s removal from the EU’s AML/CFT blacklist. While few transactions in the jurisdiction have an EU nexus, this recognition of the Cayman Islands’ standing may see additional transactions favour Cayman.’
All of these demands have in turn led to offshore firms notably adding to their regulatory capability, with many creating stand-alone teams. As Pierce observes: ‘We’ve seen a real attempt by everybody to beef up their compliance departments and their legal and regulatory teams. Those people are like gold dust at the moment. I don’t want to say we had any great foresight in terms of spotting this trend, it was probably quite an obvious one, but we did take the plunge and invested quite heavily in it a few years ago, and we now have specialist regulatory teams in every single office. We will continue to invest in it as, while finance, corporate finance and restructuring have traditionally been our core practice areas, regulatory work is quickly catching up.’
Ogier has also followed suit and in 2023 launched its new regulatory consulting business to support Jersey and Cayman-based financial services clients.
While the majority of the regulatory changes affecting the offshore markets have focused on different aspects of the financial sector, an increasing amount of work is arising from a raft of new ESG regulations, building on well-established work in the sustainable finance and transactional sectors.
‘The role of the offshore lawyer continues to evolve. Our unique position allows us to play both the black-letter lawyer as well as the trusted adviser.’
William Peake, Harneys
Green highlights the Sustainable Finance Disclosures Regulation (SFDR), a European regulation imposing ESG disclosure obligations on financial market participants to improve transparency in sustainable investments, as a key focus of attention. ‘We expect that demand for ESG legal advice will continue to grow as we help clients navigate these obligations.’ Maples also recently launched its SFDR Impact Analysis assessment, aimed at tracking the state of ESG integration in Europe.
Mackereth also sees the ESG regulatory environment as an increasing source of work. ‘There’s a growing swell of ESG regulations across the EU, UK and US. All international finance centres are doing a lot of work to ensure they stay ahead of the regulatory curve, and we don’t see it slowing down. It’s ultimately a good thing for our jurisdictions as long as the regulators have the resources to implement new regulation in a co-ordinated and rational way, and as long as the cost of doing business remains competitive.’
Crespi adds: ‘We continue to see ESG play an important role in the investment strategies adopted by both fund managers and family offices.’ She does also note, however, that: ‘While ESG continues to grow in importance and is increasingly pervasive across our advisory work, we’ve yet to see ESG-related disputes take off in the way they have onshore.’
The sustainability piece is also something that firms are looking at outside the scope of fee-earning, turning the gaze inward on what can be done in their own practices to be more ESG friendly. Mourant has been particularly proactive in this regard as the first law firm to enrol in the ESI Monitor Environmental Business Operations Award scheme, which helps businesses improve their operational environmental footprint. The firm also developed its ocean pledge, which engages in marine conservation activities.’
Adapt and invest
Given the unpredictable nature of recent years, trying to anticipate what is next may seem like a thankless task, but the general outlook midway through 2023 is a tentatively optimistic one.
‘Early signs are that the market is returning’, says Mackereth, ‘although we anticipate that it will be a relatively quiet summer leading to a busier autumn. Generally, people are talking up the second half of the year, and we’ve noticed things starting to get busier and clients asking us to dust off projects which have been mothballed for the last 9-12 months. Whether we’ll have to cancel Christmas as some US firms are saying in London – well, let’s see.’
Green agrees, noting that corporates are beginning to prepare the ground for transactions that they hope to launch later in the year, should market conditions become more favourable, and Luthi predicts that the active 2023 corporate restructuring market in both the North American and Asian markets will remain strong in 2024.
The months and years ahead are not without their worries though, with Pierce noting the inevitable concerns for businesses and law firms alike. ‘The challenges have been, and this isn’t uncommon to all other businesses, the growing cost of doing business and the costs which are unavoidable. If you want to have good robust infrastructure and sound management systems, you have to invest in those things and it’s not just a one off.’
And for Peake, adaptability of those in the legal industry will be even more vital. ‘The role of the offshore lawyer continues to evolve at a rapid pace. Our unique position allows us to play both the black-letter lawyer as well as the trusted adviser.’
Appleby
Across its Cayman Islands and Channel Islands offices, Appleby’s finance practice has seen a strong year, with the Cayman business acting on 40% of the jurisdiction’s collateralised loan obligations (CLOs), while the Jersey office oversaw more than 20 such deals in the last year. M&A transactions have continued to be a mainstay of the firm’s operations, with financing arrangements for the $5.8bn acquisition by Permira of Mimecast among the firm’s headline deals.
Appleby also expanded its presence in Asia, with the August opening of its Shanghai office, offering an extensive range of services, including corporate, banking and finance, private clients and funds advice. Hannah Yao, who is dual-qualified in China and the US, has joined the Shanghai office, focusing predominantly on transactions in the TMT sector.
Contentious work remains a core pillar of Appleby’s global practice, with matters ranging from multinational shareholder disputes valued in the billions of dollars to complex trust disputes where a range of assets and jurisdictions are at play.
May 2023 saw Jeremy Berchem step down as Guernsey managing group partner, with employment specialist Richard Sheldon stepping into the breach. Jersey’s Kevin McQuillan was made up to partner in April of 2022 and the team was further strengthened with the June 2023 arrival from Ogier of Simon Felton, whose transactional and asset structuring expertise adds another dimension to the firm’s corporate practice.
Lawyers: 200, including 73 partners
Offices: Ten (Bermuda, BVI, Cayman Islands, Guernsey, Hong Kong, Isle of Man, Jersey, Mauritius, Seychelles, Shanghai)
Group managing partner: Malcolm Moller (Mauritius)
Focus: Corporate, dispute resolution, private client/trusts, property, technology and innovation, and regulatory
Recent standout work: Advising Atrium European Real Estate on the completion of its €1.5bn take private by Gazit Globe; advising Blackstone in relation to the funding arrangements on Permira’s $5.8bn acquisition of Mimecast; acting for Pakistan Airlines in defeating an attempt to enforce a $5bn arbitral award over its BVI assets
Bedell Cristin
Bedell Cristin combines offerings in the corporate/M&A, banking and finance, dispute resolution and private client sectors to provide full-service advice to a range of clients, with notable expertise in real estate transactions, counting leading investment funds and private equity houses among its roster.
The Jersey office acted for the management of Theramex on its sale by CVC Capital Partners to Carlyle Group and PAI Partners, a deal valued at around $1.5bn, while in Guernsey the firm assisted Menora Mivtachim on its £112m investment in the real estate investor Brockton Everlast.
John Scanlan’s January 2023 arrival in the Guernsey financial services team from Carey Olsen saw the addition of an experienced funds specialist who also handles M&A transactions and IPOs. The private client team in Jersey also saw reinforcements in the form of Sevyn Kalsi, who joined from Walkers in April 2023, and advises high-net-worth individuals on the establishment of family offices and private funds while working alongside the firm’s disputes team when necessary. The disputes team divides its work between commercial and trusts disputes, notably handling an appeal brought in Guernsey by Jersey Telecom against an adverse regulatory and competition finding in relation to its 5G rollout.
Lawyers: 82, including 32 partners
Offices: Six (BVI, Cayman, Guernsey, Jersey, London, Singapore)
Group managing partner: Tim Pearce (Jersey)
Focus: Banking and finance, corporate and commercial, employment, funds, insolvency and restructuring, international private client, litigation, pensions, regulatory and compliance, wills and probate
Recent standout work: Acting for the liquidators on the collapse of the online gambling platform Football Index; advising Buckthorn Partners on the acquisition of Amey; advising Atos on its acquisition of Cloudreach
Carey Olsen
Carey Olsen’s London, Singapore and Bermuda offices have enjoyed double-digit revenue growth in 2022, with standout matters including a Bermuda team acting on RenaissanceRe’s $3bn acquisition of AIG’s reinsurance arm.
2023 has seen refinancings, restructuring and insolvency, litigation and regulatory advice come to the fore as corporate and transactional matters suffer from a global slowdown following interest rate rises and the war in Ukraine. The Guernsey office’s advice to the liquidators of Cypriot construction giant Joannou & Paraskevaides, one of Guernsey’s largest ever trading insolvencies totalling in excess of $1bn, is an indicator of the challenges wrought by the global economic downturn.
The firm’s growth is evidenced by four lateral hires in the year, with litigators Tim Haynes joining the Hong Kong office from Kobre & Kim in May 2023 and Matthew Watson moving from Bermuda’s Cox Hallett Wilkinson in June 2023.
Formerly of Clifford Chance, Matthew Grigg arrived in the Bermuda office in July 2022, bringing with him a wealth of corporate expertise, while Jersey non-contentious trusts specialist Robert Dobbyn, who advises on the laws of trusts, foundations and trust company structures, made the move from Walkers in January 2023.
A raft of internal partner promotions also signals success, with Jersey benefiting from three promotions, with funds specialist Claire Le Quesne, employment expert Huw Thomas and Will Whitehead, a commercial property and regulatory lawyer, joining the partnership ranks.
The Guernsey office made up Patricia Montgomery, who acts for private clients and fiduciaries on trust structures, while the newly-minted Simon Hall handles corporate disputes out of the BVI office. The promotion of commercial litigator Helen Wang in the Singapore office also demonstrates the firm’s continued investment in the Asia market.
Lawyers: 300, including 74 partners
Offices: Nine (Bermuda, BVI, Cape Town, Cayman, Guernsey, Hong Kong, Jersey, London, Singapore)
Group managing partner: Alex Ohlsson (Jersey)
Global chair: John Kelleher (Jersey)
Focus: Banking and finance, corporate and commercial, investment funds and private equity, listing services, dispute resolution, restructuring and insolvency, private client, trusts and private wealth, property, employment, regulatory and insurance
Recent standout work: Advising Nordic Capital on one of the largest and fastest private equity funds to be raised in Europe in the year to date, closing at a hard cap of €9bn; acting for Babel Holding, a Cayman Islands crypto-asset trading and management company, on the restructuring of its debt; advising senior managers of the Renova Group in the long running $1bn litigation in the case of Renova & Ors v Emmerson & Ors in relation to a dispute over a joint venture
Collas Crill
The banking and finance and corporate practices are credited for a strong 2022 for Collas Crill, most notably with an instruction on the Cayman Island’s largest-ever section 238 merger claim, that of 58.com, while the dispute resolution team has led on a $5bn claim against Standard & Poor’s. While soaring interest rates have slowed transactional work in 2023, a strong litigation practice, together with a private client team that was strengthened with the November 2022 arrival from Ogier of Victoria Grogan in Jersey has seen the firm maintain a strong position in the offshore market. Indeed, Cayman Islands managing partner Stephen Leontsinis notes that legislative changes across the firm’s jurisdictions are ‘providing us with good opportunities and new clients’.
Other developments include the June 2023 election of Guernsey property specialist Jason Green to senior partner following Nuno Santos-Costa’s decision to step down from the role. Greg Boyd’s arrival from Harneys in June 2023 augmented the firm’s corporate and financing practice in the BVI, in a move that sees him reunited with former colleague Ellie Crespi, while the Cayman Islands funds team has benefited from the expertise of consultant Fawaz Elmalki.
The firm has seen substantial growth in the alternative asset space, with digital assets and medicinal cannabis being particular drivers of this trend. Asset managers and VC funds have sought the firm out for assistance with the structuring of complex assets across offshore jurisdictions as they seek to diversify beyond traditional technology sector investments. Regulatory issues have also given rise to new opportunities for Collas Crill, and with Guernsey set to codify crypto-asset regulations in 2023 and also potentially overhaul the island’s cannabis laws, work is expected to continue to flow.
Lawyers: 131, including 40 partners
Offices: Five (BVI, Cayman, Guernsey, Jersey, London)
Group managing partner: Jason Romer (Jersey)
Global chair: Simon Beswick
Focus: International wealth and private client, dispute resolution, risk and regulatory, commercial property, corporate, banking and finance, funds.
Recent standout work: Acting for Royal Park Investments in a $5bn claim against Standard & Poor’s entities for losses suffered as a result of fraudulent credit ratings being ascribed to certain collateralised debt obligations (CDOs); advising the Lazari family group in its £451m acquisition and financing of the Fenwick store in London for redevelopment; acting for a group of private equity funds in the largest merger appraisal case in Cayman history against 58.com
Conyers
Conyers’ asset finance and insurance practices have hedged against weaker M&A and capital markets activity, with shipping, aviation and oil and gas matters dominating out of the Cayman office, while the London office, celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2023, has also given a solid performance across the firm’s service lines. The Bermuda corporate practice saw Marcello Ausenda, who is also Conyers’ global head of shipping, take the helm in January 2023, with Charles Collis continuing as head of the insurance and reinsurance group. Insurance work in Bermuda has increased as a result of the introduction of the Bermudian Code of Insurance Conduct, while the Cayman insurance team has been bolstered by the promotion of counsel Róisín Liddy-Murphy to head the firm’s regulatory and risk advisory team, which represented between 60% and 70% of new insurance licensees between 2022 and 2023. One standout is the firm’s advice to Sixth Street, which in January 2023 launched Talcott Life and Annuity Re in the Cayman Islands, where Conyers handled all aspects of the licensing and launch and advised on the new company’s reinsurance liabilities, totalling $25bn.
Restructuring and insolvency, closely tied with the firm’s dispute resolution practice, has seen a sharp uptick in instructions, reflected by a number of promotions across the team, with Cayman-based Spencer Vickers and Alex Davies promoted to partner in April 2023, and Matthew Brown also joining the partnership in the BVI. Debt restructuring, including that of Seadrill, which in February 2023 emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings following the reorganisation of $6bn of debt obligations, has formed a mainstay of Conyers’ work over the last year.
Trusts instructions, in particular multinational contentious trust matters, have also stayed strong, with the Hong Kong and Singapore offices attracting a number of new clients over the past year. In addition to advising on the structuring of trusts, creation of family offices and succession planning, Conyers’ private client teams have acted for high-net-worth individuals and professional trustees on major cross-border trusts disputes, covering tax, probate and restructuring issues.
Lawyers: 149, including 66 partners
Offices: Six (Bermuda, BVI, Cayman, Hong Kong, London, Singapore)
Chair: Christian Luthi (Bermuda)
Focus: Corporate (including aviation, banking and finance, capital markets, investment funds, insurance, M&A, private equity/venture capital and shipping), litigation and restructuring, private client and trust
Recent standout work: Advising The Flexi Group Holdings on its merger with TG Venture Acquisition Corp; advising OSM Maritime Group on its merger with the Thome Group; acting as Bermuda counsel to Fidelis Insurance Holdings on its IPO on the New York Stock Exchange
Harneys
2023 represents another year of change at Harneys, with William Peake taking over as global managing partner following Ross Munro’s transition to Harneys Fiduciary in January 2023, where he is chief executive and chair. Paul Sephton took over from Ian Mann as head of the firm’s Hong Kong office in May 2023, while Andrew Johnstone assumed leadership of the firm’s Cayman Islands litigation, restructuring and insolvency practice, relocating from the Hong Kong office in September 2022.
The firm has seen sustained success in its private wealth practice, with Peake noting that the former had seen ‘a surge in activity’ over 2022 and 2023. Head of trusts Henry Mander concurs, adding that ‘periods of economic uncertainty make global business-owning families think about business continuity and succession planning’. Rising interest rates and a global economic slowdown have given rise to an uptick in the firm’s restructuring and insolvency work, including assisting Chinese coffee shop chain Luckin Coffee in settling a class action lawsuit and advising on its restructuring.
In the face of a challenging market, Harneys has supported several clients in London, the US and Asia in achieving successful listings, with a special emphasis on SPACs, where it has acted for ACG in its acquisition of mining rights in Brazil for $1bn with the support of some of the automotive sector’s biggest names. Partners at the firm expect the technology sector to buck the trend of an otherwise slow M&A market that largely favours buyers, while corporate partner George Weston notes that ‘tech and AI remain relatively buoyant’. Regulatory work in crypto-assets is expected to yield more instructions, especially in the wake of several high-profile collapses in 2022 and 2023. Distressed M&A, including deals occurring as a result of insolvencies, are also expected to provide a growing workstream for Harneys in 2023 and beyond.
Lawyers: 177, including 57 partners
Offices: 11 (Bermuda, BVI, Cayman, Cyprus, Hong Kong, London, Luxembourg, Montevideo, São Paulo, Shanghai, Singapore)
Global managing partner: William Peake (London)
Focus: Litigation and insolvency, restructuring, corporate and commercial, private wealth and trusts, investment funds, regulatory and tax, banking and finance, international arbitration
Recent standout work: Advising ACG on the $1bn acquisition of mining rights in Brazil; assisting Maxpro Capital Acquisition Corp on a business combination, via a reverse merger, with Apollomics; advising Laekna on its HK$790m (US$101m) IPO.
Maples
A combination of restructuring and insolvency instructions, alongside significant growth in the firm’s litigation practice, has seen Maples build upon several senior appointments made in the 2021-22 financial year. There is optimism that the subdued M&A market will rebalance towards the end of 2023: ‘We are seeing corporates beginning to prepare the ground for transactions,’ states global managing partner Jonathan Green.
March 2023 saw Cayman Islands-based James Eldridge and Caroline Moran take over from the retiring Aristos Galatopoulos as co-heads of the firm’s dispute resolution and insolvency practice, with both handling high-value, cross-border disputes. In Dublin, transactions specialist Jordan O’Brien and ESG financing expert Vanessa Lawlor were made up to partner in February 2023, while the addition of London-based Joanna Russell to the partnership at the end of 2022 enhanced the firm’s finance offering.
The firm’s funds practice has seen a strong year, strengthening its ranks with the January 2023 addition of Norton Rose Fulbright’s Manfred Dietrich in Luxembourg, along with the promotion of Frances Hamilton in Dublin. It also launched a new ESG solutions platform in August 2022, dovetailing with the 2023 entry into force of the EU’s Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR). Maples continues to be the firm of choice for CLOs, having assisted in excess of 50 managers on more than 140 such deals between March 2022 and March 2023, while the February 2023 addition of Carey Olsen’s David Allen has added additional firepower to the firm’s CLO practice.
Maples’ Cayman office has seen substantial growth over the course of 2022, continuing into 2023, as demonstrated by Kerry Ann Phillips, Alex Howard, Ian Kirwan and James Meehan joining the partnership. The Financial Action Task Force (FATF)’s confirmation in June 2023 that the Cayman Islands have met all of its recommendations may pave the way for additional transactional activity.
Lawyers: 368, including 141 partners
Offices: Nine (BVI, Cayman Islands, Dubai, Dublin, Hong Kong, Jersey, London, Luxembourg, Singapore)
Global managing partner: Jonathan Green (Cayman Islands)
Focus: Disputes, corporate, finance, funds, insolvency and corporate restructuring, insurance, IP/technology/telecoms, private equity, property/construction, regulatory/financial services, sports/media/entertainment, tax and trusts
Recent standout work: Advising Liberty Costa Rica Senior Secured Finance on its digital infrastructure sustainability-linked bond; advising IQEQ Fund Management (Ireland) on the launch of Daiwa Blackstone Private Credit Fund, structured as a Cayman Islands unit trust and authorised for public offering in Japan; acting as Cayman Islands counsel to Modern Land (China) Co on the restructuring of its $1.34bn bondholder debt
Mourant
Mourant’s stellar 2022 saw it increase revenue year-on-year by 11% while also adding 11 new partners amid a total of 61 promotions, of which 63% were women, demonstrating a key commitment to ‘[leading] our markets in equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI)’, says global managing partner Jonathan Rigby. The firm has compounded this success by entering the Luxembourg market, having completed the acquisition of boutique law firm LexField and its corporate services arm FideField in June 2023, building upon the expansion of its consultancy service, which opened offices in Guernsey and the Cayman Islands in 2022. This has fed growth in the firm’s instructions from clients ranging from banks and fund managers to governments and regulatory agencies.
The firm’s revenue growth has been driven in large part by its M&A practice, which has remained steady in the face of challenging market conditions, and August 2023 saw the promotion of Guernsey’s James Cousins to partner. The same office acted for CSC on its $2bn acquisition of the Intertrust Group, which brought together two of the world’s largest players in the corporate services market, while the Cayman office took the lead on the business combination between X Energy Reactor Co and Ares Acquisition Corp, with the resultant publicly traded company being valued at $2bn.
Mourant’s funds practice also played a key role in the firm’s strong performance in 2022 and 2023, advising the likes of Ardian and UBS Asset Management on the formation and launch of funds ranging from several hundred million to billions of dollars, with a particular focus on real estate assets in London and the wider UK. Here there is overlap with the firm’s private client work, which has seen Sandra Duerden in Guernsey and Will Burnell in Jersey promoted to partner in February and August 2023 respectively. The team has handled a range of contentious and non-contentious trust matters concerning the structuring of assets ranging from entire companies to real estate and more, while continuing to act on high-profile disputes such as that concerning the Tchenguiz Discretionary Trust.
Further to its commitment to EDI, the firm has placed a strong emphasis on protecting the environment, maintaining close ties with organisations including Blue Marine Foundation, Ocean Culture Life and Plastic Free Cayman, while encouraging its employees to partake in conservation activities.
Lawyers: 265, including 74 partners
Offices: Eight (BVI, Cayman, Guernsey, Hong Kong, Jersey, London, Luxembourg and Mauritius)
Group managing partner: Jonathan Rigby (Jersey)
Global senior partner: Jonathan Speck (Jersey)
Focus: Corporate; banking and finance; regulatory; investment funds; restructuring and insolvency; dispute resolution; and international trust and private client
Recent standout work: Acting for the largest dissenting party, Oasis Management, on the highly-contested $2.6bn take-private of SINA Corporation; advising the National Pension Service of Korea on its indirect acquisition via a fund administered by Stonecutter Investment, of 5 Broadgate in London for £2.4bn; advising Butterfield on its acquisition of Credit Suisse’s global trusts business
Ogier
The private wealth, regulatory, disputes and insolvency and restructuring practices have been the key pillars of Ogier’s work throughout 2022 and 2023, with funds and banking and finance teams also continuing to see strong returns despite economic turmoil tied to rising interest rates and the war in Ukraine.
Managing partner Edward Mackereth notes that where traditional M&A deals have seen a marked decrease, there is scope for optimism, with private equity expected to bounce back towards the end of 2023.
Ogier’s dispute resolution practice has experienced an uptick and a range of disputes are being handled across the firm’s offices. Its Caribbean office anticipates that the collapse of FTX will herald instructions on the crypto-asset front, especially in the wake of the collapse of the Singapore-based Three Arrows Fund, where the firm acted for the liquidators. The launch of Ogier Regulatory Consulting in 2022 has assisted the firm’s lawyers in that respect, while last December trusts and insolvency litigators Rebecca McNulty and Christopher Levers were made up to partner in Jersey and Cayman respectively, demonstrating confidence in the future of the disputes practice.
Ogier also distinguishes itself with its Cayman-based IP team, which covers traditional intellectual property matters, in particular trade mark prosecutions, as well as digital assets, advising clients on the status of assets such as NFTs in relation to existing IP law.
Lawyers: 360, including 110 partners
Offices: Twelve (BVI, Cayman, Guernsey, Hong Kong, Ireland, Jersey, London, Luxembourg, plus representative offices in Beijing, Shanghai, Singapore and Tokyo)
Group managing partner: Edward Mackereth (Jersey)
Global senior partner: Rachael Reynolds KC (Cayman)
Focus: Corporate, dispute resolution, investment funds, restructuring and insolvency, private wealth, family office and regulatory
Recent standout work: Acting for Fund IV’s conflict director, litigation committee and the investors’ council in relation to numerous contentious aspects of the fallout from the collapse of the Abraaj Group; advising Atairos in a landmark $580m take private of Ocean Outdoor by way of a BVI statutory merger; acting as Cayman Islands counsel to the International Finance Corporation on the launch of a $100m ten-year social bond, the first ever healthcare social bond in the Philippines
Walkers
Global managing partner Ingrid Pierce points to non-traditional lenders as being key to Walkers’ thriving finance practice, as banks have become reluctant to lend in the face of flagging economies around the globe. The firm has focused on strengthening its regulatory, insolvency and disputes practices, as demonstrated by the arrival of several partners in various offices.
Jan Golaszewski joined from Carey Olsen in July 2023 to lead the firm’s London insolvency and disputes practice, while Ian Mason, previously of Gowling WLG, joined the Cayman Islands’ risk and regulatory team in January 2023. In Bermuda, trusts and commercial disputes specialist Steven White arrived from Appleby in August 2022. The teams in London and Guernsey have now completed their moves to new premises and the latter in particular has seen significant headcount growth over the course of 2022-23, with more than 200 staff now working in Guernsey.
The firm is advising on the Cayman Islands’ first ever restructuring plan under the new Restructuring Officer Regime (acting for the appointed officers overseeing Rockley Photonics Holdings’ restructuring following insolvency) described by Pierce as a ‘big deal’ and evidence that investment in insolvency and restructuring is paying off. Walkers’ corporate practice has not sat by idly either, acting on several notable transactions, including on the $4.6bn takeover of Diversey Holdings by Solenis and its parent company, the private equity house Platinum Equity. The funds practice has sailed a steady course over 2022-23, with larger players increasing their market share while at the same time facing increasing regulatory scrutiny. Those funds that invest in alternative assets such as cryptocurrency have provided work for the firm’s regulatory practice.
Lawyers: 467, including 151 partners
Offices: Ten (Bermuda, BVI, Cayman Islands, Dubai, Hong Kong, Guernsey, Ireland, Jersey, London, Singapore)
Global managing partner: Ingrid Pierce (Cayman Islands)
Focus: Investment funds, banking and finance, asset finance, fund finance, corporate, insolvency and dispute resolution, regulatory and risk advisory, fintech, insurance, tax (Ireland), private capital and trusts, employment, real estate, professional services, including corporate, listing and fiduciary services
Recent standout work: Advising Platinum Equity and Solenis on the latter’s $4.6bn acquisition of Diversey Holdings; acting on the $1.3bn acquisition of Cowen Inc. by TD Bank Group; advising lenders to SMBC Aviation Capital on a $1.7bn syndicated financing LB