- Managing Partner: Peter Tam
- Number of partners: 29
- Number of lawyers: 60
- Languages: Cantonese, Danish English, French, German, Greek, Italian, Mandarin, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Putonghua, Russian, Spanish, Swedish
Firm Overview:
Harney Westwood & Riegels is a leading international offshore law firm providing the world’s top law firms, financial institutions and corporations with legal services relating to British Virgin Islands, Cyprus, Cayman Islands and Anguilla law. The firm has a long standing reputation for providing fast, accurate and commercially astute advice. The firm has over 260 lawyers and staff operating in the British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Cyprus, London, Hong Kong and Montevideo. The firm also has permanent representatives in Brazil, Sub-Saharan Africa and Central and Eastern Europe.
The firm’s associated corporate and private wealth services business, Harneys Services, delivers a full complement of company, trust and fund formation and administration services.
Main Areas of Practice:
Banking & Corporate:
11 Partners; 25 fee earners
Areas of specialty include trade finance, debt restructuring, property and acquisition finance, international debt issues, derivatives transactions, joint ventures, private equity transactions, listings,mergers and acquisitions.
• Acted as BVI counsel in relation to the largest-ever IPO of a BVI Company involving aspects of Company’s US$944 million listing on NYSE
• Cayman counsel to UniCredit AG on a US$200 million secured facility to fund working capital and the acquisition of assets
• Cypriot counsel to JSC VTB Bank in a structured secured corporate financing deal worth US$500 million, involving a Western European ship building group
• BVI advice to Bank of Scotland/Lloyds TSB in relation to US$1.2 billion term loan facility and related security package
• Cayman advice to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development on a US$30 million loan which consisted of an equity investment in Mongolian Resources Corporation Ltd, the first gold focused Mongolian company to be listed on the Australian Stock Exchange and a loan Altain Khuder LLC to help finance a project to purchase equipment
Banking contact: Colin Riegels
Tel: + 852 3195 7200
Email: colin.riegels@harneys.com
Corporate contact: Leonard Birmingham
Tel: + 284 494 4326
Email: leonard.birmingham@harneys.com
Investment Funds:
7 Partners; 12 fee earners
Specialised advice on fund formation, restructuring, administration and regulatory issues in the BVI and Cayman Islands, with deep experience in distressed fund situations.
• Cayman Islands counsel to Atlantic Security Bank a major financial institution in Latin America where the firm advise on a number of matters from regulatory requirements to investment acquisitions, ISDAs and a range of other fund matters, including litigation
• Advising Cobalt Capital on the establishment of a Cayman master feeder structure including complex relation issues
• Advising Equity Trust and the TMF Group on BVI Regulatory matters in relation to the acquisition by private equity house Doughty Hanson of Equity Trust
• Advising Banco Bradesco and one of its key wealth clients on the creation of a Cayman Investment Fund Structure that assisted the client in achieving his primary objectives in a quick low cost manner
• Advising 212 Limited, an Investment manger client in Turkey, with structuring of a complex cross-border Investment vehicle and management company
Contact: Ross Munro
Tel: + 284 494 7850
Email: ross.munro@harneys.com
Litigation & Insolvency:
5 Partners; 17 fee earners
Accurate, clear and timely advice relating to British Virgin Islands and Cayman Islands law,with particular emphasis on high profile multi-jurisdictional commercial and insolvency disputes.
• Successfully acted for a consortium of institutional investors including Lloyds/TSB, Bank Julius Baer, Deutsche Bank, Deutsche Trust Suisse and ABN AMRO in a US$1.45 billion claim filed in the BVI court emanating from the Bernard Madoff fraud
• Advising one of the largest and most complex trust matters involving an asset hunt for US$70 million trust estate and related declaration proceedings
• Acted in one of the largest trials ever undertaken in the Financial Services Division of the Grand Court of the Cayman Islands in relation to a US$135 million hedge fund dispute against Investcorp Bank BSC and five other defendants
• Acted in connection with the US$1.5 billion fraud allegedly perpetrated against BTA JSC Bank of Kazakhstan, now before the UK Commercial Court
• Acted for Rosneft, one of Russia’s largest oil companies, in proceedings against various BVI entities in one of the most high-profile international disputes involving litigation in the UK, The Netherlands, Russia, Armenia, Jersey and Ireland
Contact: Phillip Kite
Tel: +1 284 494 6059
Email: phillip.kite@harneys.com
Trusts & Private Client:
2 Partners; 4 fee earners
The team specialises in the creation of all types of BVI, Cayman and Cyprus trusts,with particular emphasis on the creation of trusts to hold family trading and investing companies. The firm also advises on real estate, administrative, labour and general commercial matters in the British Virgin Islands.
• Advising a Swiss company on their position as trustee of a Cayman trust when faced with a request for information from a remote discretionary beneficiary in potentially hostile circumstances
• Advising the family office of an ultra HNW family seeking to restructure the ownership of its international wealth in relation to providing jurisdictional trust analyses for Cayman and BVI as part of a wider review of the offshore jurisdictions
Contact:
Private Client Contact: Sheila George
Tel: + 1 284 494 6461
Email: sheila.george@harneys.com
Trust Contact: Henry Mander
Tel: + 1 345 815 2927
Email: henry.mander@harneys.com
Areas of PracticeBanking & Finance
Corporate & Commercial
Investment Funds & Regulatory
Intellectual Property
Litigation & Insolvency
Real Estate
Private Client
Tax
Trusts
Shipping & Aircraft
Insurance