Karen Le Cras > Carey Olsen > St Peter Port, Guernsey > Lawyer Profile

Karen Le Cras

+44 (0)1481 741524 karen.lecras@careyolsen.com View profile View profile

Work Department

Dispute Resolution and Litigation; Trusts and Private Wealth; Regulatory; Investment Funds

Position

Karen is a partner and general counsel in the Dispute Resolution & Litigation Group in Guernsey. She specialises in corporate and commercial disputes, with a particular emphasis on banking, finance and trusts litigation and asset tracing and freezing orders. Karen also frequently advises companies, shareholders and directors in relation to corporate insolvency matters, and banks on enforcement of security. Karen also advises in relation to regulatory matters, including regulatory investigations. Karen has wide advocacy experience and appears frequently before the Guernsey Courts. 

Karen’s work often involves cross-border and conflicts of law issues. Recent matters in which Karen has acted include:

• advising an international investment bank in relation to alleged mis-selling of investments
• acting for the general partner of a fund in relation to the removal of the fund’s investment adviser
• acting for the corporate trustee of a trust in a claim for breach of trust arising out of investments made by the trustees
• acting for a retiring trustee in relation to a dispute concerning the extent of a trustee’s right of indemnity against trust assets
• acting for a global telecoms company in locating and securing assets in enforcement of a US$2 billion judgment
• acting for a leading investment bank in obtaining freezing order relief ancillary to extra-jurisdictional proceedings
• acting for a company in a dispute with a shareholder and former director; acting for the directors of an insolvent multi-million dollar hedge fund in applying for a compulsory winding up order
• acting for a leading high street bank in enforcing its security over the realty of a company to secure repayment of significant outstanding loans
• acting for employees and directors of a regulated entity in connection with a regulatory investigation.  

Karen’s clients include local trust companies and retail banks, private companies, international investment banks, hedge funds, insurers and accountants. Karen is frequently instructed by leading law firms, both in the UK and elsewhere. Karen is named in the Citywealth Leaders List 2014 in the Honours List for Contentious Trusts, as a Leading Practitioner by the IBA’s “Who’s Who Legal” of Asset Recovery Lawyers 2014, and is recognised in the Citywealth IFC Power Women Top 100 list. Karen is a member of the Chancery Bar Association, the International Bar Association, the Association of Insolvency and Restructuring Experts and the Institute of Directors.

Career

Karen was called to the Bar in England and Wales in 1995 and qualified as a Solicitor of England and Wales in January 1999. Karen joined Carey Olsen in March 2002 having previously practised at Barlow Lyde & Gilbert, a leading London firm. She was called as an advocate of the Guernsey Bar in July 2003. Karen was made a partner in 2005.

In January 2019 Karen was appointed as global general counsel to the firm. 

Languages

French.

Memberships

Chancery Bar Association, the International Bar Association, the Association of Insolvency and Restructuring Experts and the Institute of Directors.

Education

Kingston University (1994 LLB Hons); Inns of Court School of Law (1995); Université de Caen (2002 Certificat d’Etudes Juridiques Françaises et Normandes).