The Legal 500 United Kingdom 2012 > Isle of Man > Overview

Leading individuals

Commercial property

- Mark Humphrey - Long & Humphrey
- Irini Newby - Simcocks
- Jeremy Walton - Cains

Dispute resolution

- Christopher Arrowsmith - Simcocks
- Seth Caine - Cains
- Peter Clucas - Cains
- Christopher Cope - Appleby
- Charles Davies - Appleby
- Alan Gough - Gough Law

Employment

- John Aycock - M&P Legal
- Caren Hyde - Appleby

Insurance and pensions

- Simon Harding - Appleby
- Annemarie Hughes - Dougherty Quinn
- Ben Hughes - Cains
- David Spencer - Simcocks

Investment funds and capital markets

- Simon Harding - Appleby
- Richard Vanderplank - Cains

Private client and trusts

- Paul Dougherty - Dougherty Quinn
- Phil Games - Simcocks
- Annemarie Hughes - Dougherty Quinn
- John Rimmer - Appleby

Appleby advised INB Bank on the Isle of Man aspects of a £125m revolving credit facility to BCP Partners in relation to the purchase of the Phones 4U Group from Providence. Faye Moffett is the local team head for banking and asset finance, and Islamic and structured finance. Simon Cain deals mainly with corporate and asset finance matters, and is particularly noted for shipping finance.

Cains acts on the establishment and licensing of banks in the Isle of Man, cross-jurisdictional and domestic restructurings, insolvencies of financial institutions and corporate debtors, acquisition, project and asset finance transactions, and syndicated loans and other domestic and international financing transactions. Andrew Baker and Tim Shepherd are the principal contacts.

Dougherty Quinn provides a ‘prompt service with hands-on partner involvement’. The firm is on the offshore legal panel of several major banks, and regularly acts for syndicates of banks. It also undertakes a significant amount of shipping finance work. Mark Dougherty is ‘extremely approachable and willing to go the extra mile to provide the level of service required’. Tom Maher is ‘a commercially tuned lawyer who gives real-world advice’.

Simcocks ‘provides highly efficient and competent advice’. The team acted in connection with Project Earl, which involved the restructuring of multiple financings. The team also worked on two superyacht financing and security transactions for Bank of America. David Spencer is highly regarded.

Regional review

Although the financial services sector remains a key source of instructions for Isle of Man lawyers, the island also boasts a burgeoning space industry, and is a leading centre for e-gaming, while the success of the Isle of Man Aircraft Register has led to an increase in aircraft finance transactions. Furthermore, following in the footsteps of Jersey, the jurisdiction introduced its own foundations law, which came into effect in 2012 and is based on the Jersey model. Appleby set up and established the Isle of Man’s first foundation.

Recent highlights, in terms of commercial deals requiring Manx legal advice, included Kleinwort Benson Channel Islands Holding’s acquisition of several Isle of Man regulated entities, and Lamprell’s $336.1m offer for Maritime Industrial Services.

In the second half of 2011, many firms experienced an increase in the number of instructions from parties disputing investment advice, while the largest, most complex dispute ever to come before a Manx Court is The Alfa Group (Russia) dispute concerning the ownership of a substantial stake in the Kyrgyz Republic’s mobile telecoms industry. The case was initially before the courts in 2007, but has become active again in the jurisdiction. The island’s Privy Council recently determined that jurisdictional challenges launched by a number of the parties should be dismissed, such that the substantive litigation will continue in the Isle of Man.

The biggest news for the legal market occurred in May 2012, when Gough Advocates’ managing director Paul Kerruish left the firm, taking the corporate, commercial, private client and property arms of the business and forming a new private client and commercial practice called Kerruish Law & Trust. Gough Advocates has rebranded as a litigation practice, under the name Gough Law.

Leading law firm Cains expanded its service offering through the establishment of fiduciary operations in Singapore and BVI; there are large numbers of fiduciary services providers on the Isle of Man and a large proportion incorporate and administer BVI companies. Simcocks also has BVI-qualified lawyers. Appleby, meanwhile, is the only international law firm with an office in all three Crown Dependencies, in addition to its Caribbean (including BVI) offices.

United Kingdom > Isle of Man > Overview

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