Mourant Ozannes addresses directors' duties and concerns at recent seminar

Date: Monday, September 26, 2011
Author: Hedgeweek.com

Mourant Ozannes' litigation partner and regulatory law expert, Beverley Lacey, recently chaired and addressed a packed audience at the Royal Yacht Hotel on important recent legislative developments of concern to company directors offshore.

The event attracted over 130 directors from the Island's finance industry, with standing room only.

Leading experts Lesley Anderson QC and Edward Rowntree, barristers from insolvency chambers, Hardwicke, spoke on directors' duties and the approach of the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry in the UK to disqualification. Beverley Lacey explained the disqualification regimes in Jersey, Guernsey and the Cayman Islands and the regulatory approach of the Jersey Financial Services Commission under Jersey's Companies Law.

Finally, Beverley covered the significant decision last month out of the Supreme Court of the Cayman Islands of Weavering Macro Fixed Income Fund Limited (in Liquidation) -v- Peterson and Ekstrom. The judge's lengthy ruling on the statutory and common law duties owed by directors is of importance to all non-executive and independent directors.

Beverley, a commercial litigator who works with leading financial institutions and regulators on all aspects of financial services regulation, opened the seminar on the basis that: "The law and ensuring compliance with it can be a minefield for directors, whatever their level of experience. The seminar is aimed at providing you with as much information as possible in order to avoid the many pitfalls that there are."

The directors attending were particularly interested in the comparison between Jersey and Guernsey law and the recent Weavering judgment in the Cayman Islands, with its damning verdict on the way the directors failed to act out their duties. In that case the two independent directors of the hedge fund failed in their duties and were ordered to pay damages of USD111 million.