When Must A Trustee Apply To Remove A Protector Or When Must A Trustee Bite The Hand That Feeds It?

The Issue

Very recently, the Jersey Royal Court stated that in certain very limited circumstances, including those before the court in that instance, a trustee has a duty to apply to court for the removal of a protector of the trust. It is difficult to conceive of any more awkward obligation to place on a trustee. My view is that in the Cayman Islands such an obligation will only arise under a traditional protector trust in very exceptional circumstances where the protector's conflict and conduct are egregious and the beneficiaries are minors or otherwise incompetent. However, I am also of the view that eventually such an obligation will certainly arise and arise much more often in the context of a Cayman STAR trust.