Offshore lawyers are quoted as telling the London-based legal publication that courts are “crammed with multi-million-dollar cases”, mirroring a situation that is also happening onshore.
“What’s happening offshore is something we’ve not seen before,” the article quotes Ogier global litigation head Matthew Thompson as saying.
It says estimates of how long the financial crisis work will last range from two years to five, and possibly longer.
The main issues identified by offshore litigators that are said to be leading to financial crisis-related claims are attempts by investors and creditors to recoup lost funds; negligence claims against directors or service providers; illiquidity; valuation and delveraging issues, “and, increasingly, trust disputes as the second generations of trusts start to seek control of their assets", the article says.
“Freezing injunctions are also becoming more common."
The article continues: “Some courts are seeing new types of claims, such as the anti-anti-suit injunction filed in Guernsey by the liquidators of the Carlyle Capital Corporation in their fight against the company’s former directors, to recoup more than $1bn (£650m) in losses sustained when Carlyle went into liquidation.”
The Cayman Islands have emerged as a centre of the current storm of legal activity, according to The Lawyer, which quotes lawyers as suggesting that the creation in 2009 of a new courts department there, known as the Financial Services Division, "has propelled [it] into the top tier of offshore litigation jurisdictions".
To read the article in its entirety, click here.
