A look at the most read stories on eprivateclient this week...
Monday
Withers KhattarWong, the Singapore office of international law firm Withersworldwide, appointed Shashi Nathan, partner and head of its Singapore white collar defence and investigations practice, and Daniel Yong, partner and head of the firm's Singapore funds practice, as joint managing partners effective 31 March. Mr Nathan has over 30 years of experience as a serious crime lawyer. He regularly advises clients on issues ranging from fraud and corruption to insider trading and market manipulation. Mr Yong was most recently a partner at Morgan Lewis & Bockius from 2015 until 2019. Throughout his practice years across various international firms, Mr Yong has managed complex fund formation and cross-border investment mandates in the region, including Singapore, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Vietnam, India and China.
The Jersey Financial Services Commission (JFSC) detected a vulnerability in its online registry system on 23 January 2024. After conducting an initial forensic review with an independent cyber security partner, the JFSC identified that the vulnerability was due to a misconfiguration in its third party-supplied registry system, which had been implemented in January 2021. This vulnerability allowed access to non-public names and addresses. It did not link any individuals to registered entities or roles held. Of the one million records, 66,806 individuals have had their names and addresses accessed via the registry's application programming interfaces (API) in circumstances where this information was not already in the public domain.
Tuesday
International law firm Charles Russell Speechlys hired Jeremy Bell as a senior consultant in its financial services regulation and funds group. Mr Bell was previously head of the private investment funds group at UK law firm Burges Salmon and, prior to that, spent 24 years at Ashurst. He focuses primarily on private funds, particularly the structuring and formation of private investment funds across alternative asset classes, including carried interest arrangements and establishing fund management structures. He will focus on using his profile and network to continue to build out the firm’s profile in the private funds space.
Fiduciary and corporate services provider IQ-EQ appointed Romain Mifsud as chief commercial officer (CCO) for France and Switzerland. With 14 years’ experience in the private market industry, Mr Mifsud specialises in private equity, real estate, private debt and securitisation. Prior to joining IQ-EQ, he was head of sales and relationship managers at Société Générale Securities Services, Paris, where he was responsible for the development of a commercial strategy for French private markets and asset managers. In this newly created role, Mr Mifsud will oversee IQ-EQ’s commercial activities in France and Switzerland while working closely with IQ-EQ's CCOs in other jurisdictions to achieve the group’s global growth ambitions.
Wednesday
The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) raided two sites and made three arrests across the south of England as part of a new investigation into an alleged £76 million fraud involving luxury care homes. The raids in St Leonard’s, Dorset and Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire are part of an investigation into the UK registered property developer, the Carlauren Group, which collapsed into administration in November 2019, requiring some elderly residents to vacate their homes and leaving over 600 investors out of pocket. Over four years, the Carlauren Group purchased 23 properties across the UK, mostly former hotels including the historic Windlestone Hall in Durham, offering an annual 10 percent return on investment in its renovation of these properties into high-end care homes. [Read more]
FTSE 250 companies are making progress towards the December 2024 deadline of appointing at least one ethnic minority director, according to research from the Parker Review. Around four-fifths (79 percent) of responding companies met the target in 2023. In December 2023, 175 of the 250 companies (70 percent) met this target, an increase from 149 in 2022. A total of 96 FTSE 100 companies met the target of at least one ethnic minority director on their boards, in line with last year. [Read more]
Thursday
London law firm Seddons added Kate Ryan as a partner in its family team. Ms Ryan joined Seddons with nearly 20 years’ experience in family law. Before joining Seddons, she was a partner at IBB Law for seven years. Ms Ryan specialises in divorce and financial settlement agreements. She has experience across the spectrum of family law matters and advises clients on issues including protecting wealth and prenuptial agreements, arrangements for their children including those cases with cross jurisdictional elements, and trust of land act claims relating to cohabiting parties. She also works with clients on matters involving coercive control – where her clients are in controlling and abusive relationships.
Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) enacted what it says is the world’s first digital assets law, a new law of security and related amendments to select existing legislation to cater for the consequences of the new digital assets regime and revised security regime. The legislative enactments aim to ensure DIFC laws keep pace with the rapid developments in international trade and financial markets arising from technological developments, and to provide legal certainty for investors in, and users of, digital assets. Following extensive review of the legal approaches taken to digital assets in multiple jurisdictions, and a period of public consultation in 2023, DIFC is now enacting its own digital assets law.
Friday
Some of the UK’s wealthiest families were landed with retrospective tax bills in the region of £1.4 million on lifetime gifts, according to annual figures from a Freedom of Information (FOI) request by RBC Brewin Dolphin. The families tried to make use of a rule allowing individuals to make gifts of unlimited value which become exempt from inheritance tax if the giver survives a further seven years, known as a “potentially exempt transfer” (PET). But the FOI request to HMRC revealed that 13,380 of these gifts became the subject of inheritance tax (IHT) charged at up to 40 percent after the donor died within the seven year period. According to the dossier, the top 50 “failed gifts” in 2020-21 averaged £3.6 million after allowances and exemptions. A gift of this size would trigger a tax bill of up to £1,452,000 if the PET failed in the first three years.
A full list of winners and finalists from the 26th PAM Awards, presented last night (14/03/2024) at a black tie gathering attended by over 400 guests at the Royal Lancaster London. PAM Insight would like to congratulate the companies listed here, and thank all those that took time to submit an entry.