Alex Horsbrugh-Porter

Alex is part of Ogier's multi-disciplinary Restructuring and Insolvency team and Trust Advisory Group, specialising in contentious insolvency procedures as well as shareholder applications. He has more than 20 years of experience in general commercial disputes involving financial services businesses and Guernsey trusts, as well as regulatory disputes. Alex also has experience in member and creditor schemes of arrangement. He has appeared in Courts in the Cayman Islands and Guernsey since 2004. Previously a director of a local firm of insolvency practitioners, Alex is a fellow of the Insolvency Practitioners Association and is a non-practising licensed insolvency practitioner.

Background and experience

Alex qualified as an advocate of the Royal Court of Guernsey in January 2014 where he appears regularly on complex insolvency and restructuring matters as well as commercial, regulatory and trust disputes. His prior role as an insolvency practitioner gives him a unique insight into the challenges faced by insolvency practitioners and enables him to provide practical and first-hand knowledge and advice. He is also one of four committee members advising the States of Guernsey on the implementation of the rules which will support the amendments to the Companies Law.

His recent achievements include:

• leading on one of the first provisional liquidations in Guernsey
• placing the Mitco group of property owning companies into administration
• advising a trustee in relation to a recognition application brought by a UK trustee in bankruptcy
• leading on a just and equitable winding up application involving a high profile Indian family
• and successfully removing a trustee in contentious removal proceedings

Alex also has experience of advising boards of directors on their common law, fiduciary and statutory duties and obligations and methods by which liabilities can be avoided or minimised, especially when those directors are faced with insolvency proceedings.

Alex qualified and spent seven years at DAC Beachcroft (then Davies Arnold Cooper) and Ince & Co in London before moving to the Cayman Islands in 2004. He spent seven years there at a local firm, latterly as a partner specialising in insolvency and fund disputes. Alex then moved to Guernsey and worked at a local offshore firm where he qualified as an advocate and was primarily involved in insolvency matters, as well as trust and regulatory disputes. He then spent a year as a director of a local corporate insolvency firm where he used his insolvency qualifications to take appointments as a liquidator and advise directors on their liabilities.

Alex joined Ogier in February 2017. He was a founding director of ARIES, the local chapter of INSOL, and is a member of R3, INSOL International and the Insolvency Practitioners Association.

Admitted:

2014 - Guernsey

2004 - Cayman

1998 - England and Wales