Appleby, a provider of offshore legal, fiduciary and administration services, is opening its office in Guernsey today.
The group will now have 81 partners, 215 lawyers and over 800 staff worldwide.
The new office will practise Guernsey law with a focus on corporate and commercial law, private client and trust matters, litigation, insolvency and restructuring and, following approval by the Guernsey Financial Services Commission, will offer a range of fiduciary services.
Appleby Guernsey will initially comprise corporate and commercial group partners Barney Lee and Helen Crossley, litigation partner Jeremy Le Tissier and private client and trust partner Gavin Ferguson, each of whom joined from a local law firm in Guernsey.
Group partner David Clark will act as managing director of the office and has relocated from Appleby London. Chris Ward, formerly managing director of Rothschild Trust Guernsey, will head up the fiduciary and administration services business.
The group now has 12 offices worldwide in the offshore centres of Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Isle of Man, Jersey, Mauritius, Seychelles and Guernsey, as well as the leading financial centres of London, Hong Kong, Zurich and Bahrain. The move follows last year’s opening in the Isle of Man, when Dickinson Cruickshank joined the Appleby group.
Peter Bubenzer (pictured), Appleby’s global managing partner, says: “We are very excited about this development. Our entry into the Guernsey market further builds our strength and depth across multiple jurisdictions — providing greater resources and a wider choice to our clients. The Guernsey office will offer our corporate, institutional and private clients with greater resources and a broader range of structures and jurisdictions, unmatched by any other provider of offshore legal services. We believe that this move will reinforce Appleby’s position as the first choice for clients in the offshore sector.”
