Appleby officially opened the doors to its Guernsey office yesterday (19th April 2010).
The Group - which provides offshore legal, fiduciary and administration services - will now have 81 partners, 215 lawyers and over 800 staff worldwide.
It has been ranked as the world’s 'No 1 Offshore Law Firm' by partner numbers in The Lawyer’s 2010 Offshore Survey.
The new office will practice Guernsey law with a focus on corporate and commercial law, private client and trust matters, litigation, insolvency and restructuring and, following approval by the Guernsey Financial Services Commission, will offer a complete range of fiduciary services.
The latest move underlines Appleby’s strategy to offer clients the widest choice of sophisticated financial centres through which to invest, and establishes the group’s position as the only offshore legal, fiduciary and administration service provider with a major foothold in eight of the world’s leading offshore business centres.
Appleby Guernsey will initially comprise group partners Barney Lee and Helen Crossley specialising in corporate and commercial law, litigation partner Jeremy Le Tissier, and private client and trust partner Gavin Ferguson, each of whom joined from a local law firm in Guernsey.
Group partner, David Clark, will act as managing director of the office and has relocated from Appleby London. Chris Ward, formerly managing director of Rothschild Trust Guernsey, will head up the Fiduciary and Administration Services business.
The group now has 12 offices worldwide, in the Isle of Man, Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Jersey, Mauritius, Seychelles and Guernsey, as well as London, Hong Kong, Zurich and Bahrain. The move follows last year’s successful opening in the Isle of Man, when Dickinson Cruickshank joined the Appleby group.
Peter Bubenzer, Appleby’s global managing partner added, "We are very excited about this development. Our entry into the Guernsey market further builds our strength and depth across multiple jurisdictions — providing greater resources and a wider choice to our clients.
"The Guernsey office will offer our corporate, institutional and private clients with greater resources and a broader range of structures and jurisdictions, unmatched by any other provider of offshore legal services. We believe that this move will reinforce Appleby’s position as the first choice for clients in the offshore sector."
Pictured: (back row, l-r) Jeremy Le Tissier, David Clark, Barney Lee; (front row, l-r) Helen Crossley, Chris Ward and Gavin Ferguson.
