Royal Court of Jersey adopts hybrid approach to resolving hostile matters in administrative trust dispute applications

In two judgments delivered in the Representation of Q Limited (reported at [2024] JRC 259 and [2025] JRC 105), the Royal Court of Jersey has demonstrated the extent to which it can, as the master of its own procedure, create a hybrid hearing process in order to resolve both hostile and administrative applications within the same proceedings.  

Lessons from the Representation of Q Limited 

The decisions of the Royal Court in the Q Limited proceedings will be of interest to professional trustees, particularly those who are involved in private trust companies (PTCs) and beneficiaries of trusts. 

The judgments demonstrate that the Royal Court, as master of its own procedure, is willing and able to adopt a flexible approach, where doing so enables it to resolve multiple sets of related issues within one set of proceedings. This is particularly relevant to trustees seeking relief from the Royal Court (by way of a blessing, for example). The Q Limited judgments show that a dissatisfied beneficiary may be able to use the Trustee's engagement with the Royal Court process to raise related complaints about trust administration. 

The approach to discovery from directors of the Trustee in Q Limited is particularly important for PTCs. One of the advantages of using a PTC is the ability to have family members (or trusted advisers to the family) on the board of directors of the PTC. The approach to discovery in Q Limited makes clear that family directors of a PTC may have to provide personal documents to the PTC for disclosure, particularly where they have used their personal knowledge in the discharge of their responsibilities as directors of the PTC.  

Case background: the Representation of Q Limited 

Q Limited (the Trustee) is a private trust company established to act as trustee of a Jersey law discretionary trust known as the TRD Trust (the Trust). For more information about PTCs, read Private Trust Companies (PTCs): Key uses and functions | Ogier.

The board of directors of the Trustee, as is often the case with PTCs, is comprised of several professional trustees (provided by a Jersey regulated trust company business) and some of the family members for whom the Trust was settled.  

The primary asset of the Trust had, at all material times, been a 100% shareholding in a foreign incorporated holding company, which in turn held a valuable trading business that had been founded by the settlor of the Trust (the Company).  

The settlor of the Trust had six adult children, five of whom were within the beneficial class of the Trust. The beneficial class also extended to include the issue and remoter issue of those of the settlor's children named as beneficiaries of the Trust. 

In July 2019, the Trustee resolved to distribute 80% of the shares in the Company held by the Trust to be split equally among four of the settlor's five children (the 2019 Appointment). The Trustee continued to hold 20% of the shares in the Company. The Trustee did not seek a blessing from the Royal Court of its decision to make the 2019 Appointment. At the time of the 2019 Appointment, the settlor of the Trust expressed the view that the remaining 20% shareholding should be for the benefit of the descendants of his remaining adult child (A) who did not receive shares under the 2019 Appointment. 

Between 2019 and 2022, the relationship between A and his family deteriorated, allegedly due to A’s conduct, which was said to be disruptive and damaging to the affairs of the Company.  

In August 2022 the Trustee resolved, subject to seeking a blessing from the Royal Court, to distribute the remaining shares in the Company (the 2022 Decision). The Trustee's decision was to distribute those shares in equal portions to the same individuals who had received shares pursuant to the 2019 Appointment, rather than to A or their lineal descendants. Unlike with the 2019 Appointment, the Trustee applied to the Royal Court for a blessing of the 2022 Decision (the Trustee's Application). 

As part of the Trustee's Application, A and his adult children sought to:  

1. challenge the 2019 Appointment as a breach of trust

2. resist the Trustee's application for a blessing of the 2022 Decision 

In two separate decisions, the Royal Court has grappled with the procedural approach to determining:  

1. A's challenge to the 2019 Appointment

2. the Trustee's Application 

Separate or combined proceedings? 

In its first judgment reported at [2024] JRC 259, the Royal Court was tasked with deciding whether A's challenge to the 2019 Appointment should be dealt with in separate proceedings to the Trustee's Application.  

The Royal Court held that the challenge to the 2019 Appointment and the Trustee's Application should be heard together, notwithstanding that the former were hostile proceedings and the latter was an administrative application. The Royal Court considered that this hybrid procedure was appropriate because: 

1. Previous decisions of the Royal Court showed that, in a blessing application, it was open to a beneficiary to challenge a trustee decision on hostile grounds (e.g. as amounting to a breach of trust or an irrational decision). Such challenges did not have to be brought within separate hostile proceedings.

2. The Royal Court had the power, as a matter of its own procedural rules, to allow hostile claims to be brought through the Representation procedure (more commonly used for administrative and non-contentious applications).

3. The challenge to the 2019 Appointment was made by A in their capacity as a beneficiary of the Trust, rather than in some different and/or unrelated capacity.

4. The previously decided cases did not draw a clear line as to the formal process by which a challenge to a trustee decision should be brought – in particular whether it should be brought by way of an Order of Justice (the usual process for hostile proceedings) or a Representation (the usual process for administrative proceedings). What mattered most was that the basis of the challenge was sufficiently clearly set out such that the trustee knew the case which it had to meet.

5. It would be artificial to separate the challenge to the 2019 Appointment from the Trustee's Application (and the challenges in respect of that) because there was a clear link between the 2019 Appointment and the 2022 Decision. It was therefore preferable to have one single forum dealing with all of the matters raised. 

 
Discovery 

In its second judgment, reported at [2025] JRC 105, the Royal Court considered the extent to which the parties ought to provide discovery.  

Having heard argument, the Royal Court ordered that discovery should be given by: 

1. A 

2. A's adult children (but only to the extent that they held documents not already discovered by A or the Trustee) 

3. the Trustee 

 
In respect of the discovery to be given by the Trustee, the Royal Court went further and held that the Trustee should also provide discovery of documents held by its directors in any capacity (i.e. not only those documents which they held in their capacity as directors of the Trustee). This therefore extended discovery to documents which they hold in their personal capacity, or other capacities which they hold unconnected with the Trustee and the Trust. 

How Ogier can help 

Ogier’s Dispute Resolution team in Jersey regularly advises clients in relation to a range of court procedures. You can contact a member of the team on +44 1534 514000 or email jsy@ogier.com. 

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This client briefing has been prepared for clients and professional associates of Ogier. The information and expressions of opinion which it contains are not intended to be a comprehensive study or to provide legal advice and should not be treated as a substitute for specific advice concerning individual situations.

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