Practice areas

We aspire to be the referral lawyers of choice for intermediaries throughout the wealth management industry: within private banking, we are a panel firm for a number of high profile private banks; we are consulted by them on the evolution of their service offering to meet changing client demands or the requirements of a new tax or regulatory regime.

We assist in particular with the implementation of tax planning for taxpayers who are resident but not domiciled in the UK, with special reference to the structuring of bank accounts and the tax analysis of different forms of investment holdings, to ensure optimum use of the remittance basis of taxation; we also put together funds and umbrella holding structures, which take account of UK tax and FSMA rules.

For a number of banks, we advise on the UK tax rules for trustee residence and the associated operational impact. We also help devise trust example precedents for the trustee businesses within private banks: recently, for example, we have focused heavily for one trustee on the provision of settlor-reserved powers trusts, as requested by certain segments of the clientele, and their drafting to balance the natural expectations of settlors with the institutional risk tolerance of the trustee.