Ogier's Dispute Resolution team celebrates 10 year anniversary in Guernsey

Ogier's dispute resolution team in Guernsey is celebrating its 10 year anniversary having opened its doors on 1 October 2004.  Advocate Simon Davies set up the department to complement Ogier's already well-established business and trusts law group. 

Today the Guernsey office firm comprises six partners and a senior consultant together with approximately 45 staff and exclusively provides legal services to the financial services industry.

The dispute resolution team in Guernsey is now 14 strong, which includes Advocate Mathew Newman who became a partner in the team in 2013, one managing associate, three senior associates, three associates, a trainee solicitor and a paralegal together with three PAs.   

Ogier is one of only two local Guernsey firms accredited by the Solicitors Regulatory Authority (SRA) to offer training contracts for aspiring lawyers and during the last 10 years has helped eight young people towards achieving their ambition of qualifying as a solicitor.  The firm currently has three trainee solicitors, each of whom will sit in the dispute resolution team for a six month period. 

The growth of Ogier's dispute resolution team has mirrored the huge growth in contentious business seen in Guernsey over the past ten years, but especially since the financial crisis of 2007/2008.  This resulted in an unprecedented increase in litigation taking place in the Royal Court of Guernsey, particularly in the field of trust litigation, insolvency and restructuring, disputes involving investment schemes and professional negligence claims.

A number of significant "firsts" have been achieved by the Ogier team during its 10 years, these include:

• Acting for the beneficiary in Guernsey's first ever Hastings-Bass application in the context of a Guernsey trust;
• Acting in respect of Guernsey's first pre-packaged company administration;
• Acting in Guernsey's first ever civil claim over $1bn, brought by the liquidators of Carlyle Capital Corporation against the Carlyle Group and various of its officers;
• Acted for the company in Guernsey's first ever shareholder derivative action, importing the rule in Foss v Harbottle into Guernsey law for the first time;
• Acted for the office holder on the first ever recognition of a foreign-appointed receiver by the Guernsey courts;
• Acted for on Guernsey's first ever insolvent scheme of arrangement which led to a full return to creditors and positive outcome for members; and
• Acted for a party defending Guernsey's largest ever construction claim in the sum of around £68m. 

On reaching this significant milestone, Advocate Simon Davies commented "Mathew, I and the team have thoroughly enjoyed meeting the many and varied challenges that our clients have sent our way over the past ten years and would like to thank all our clients for their support over the years.  We are very fortunate to have an incredibly hard-working and dedicated team that has made us the success we are today. We have been at the forefront of an unprecedented growth in commercial, financial, trusts and insolvency litigation before the Guernsey courts and consider ourselves very well placed to live up to new and even greater challenges over the next ten years."