Reasserts Control Over Its Trusts

New Jersey Court decision protects trusts against English divorce orders

On 15 August, the Deputy Bailiff (the second most senior Judge) handed down judgment in the landmark case of Mubarak v. Mubarak. In recent years there have been a number of cases in Jersey where a spouse has sought to enforce a divorce order of the English High Court's Family Division purporting to vary a Jersey trust. There has been considerable doubt about the precise circumstances in which the Jersey Royal Court will enforce such an order and in previous decisions the Royal Jersey Court seemed always willing to do so.

This judgment provides some welcome clarification. The Deputy Bailiff distinguished between the "variation of a trust" and its "alteration". The Court characterised the latter as a change which cannot be carried out within the existing powers of the trustees. A "variation" however is a change to the trust which the trustees can effect without reference to the Court, for