An Introduction To Offshore Trusts

With decades of prominence in the private wealth sphere, many of the world's oldest and largest trusts are Bermuda trusts, meaning that the jurisdiction frequently yields internationally important cases, such as, recently, the X Trusts litigation on the scope of the protector's role in private trusts (soon to be heard by the Privy Council) and the Wong litigation which was also referred to the Privy Council and clarified the scope of trustees' powers under the proper purpose rule.

Prominence of Bermuda for High Net Worth Individuals

There are many reasons for the prominence of Bermuda in the trusts sphere. Bermuda is white-listed by the European Union and complies with international regulatory standards on anti-money-laundering, anti-terrorist financing and information exchange under the US Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, the Common Reporting Standard and various exchange of information treaties, meaning that doing business with Bermuda