Top 10 Headlines from Offshore A recent judgment of the Royal Court of Jersey demonstrates its approach to an application to set aside a trust and certain gifts made under it on the grounds of mistake. In a culture where gossip is news, where questions are met with indignation instead of answers, and where, by law, the Ministers' definition of "public good" cannot be questioned, facts and fiction are readily and frequently intermingled in the Government's announcements and news releases. A Jersey law trust. A Jersey corporate trustee. Divorcing beneficiaries, both of whom are resident in a foreign jurisdiction. What should you do? What shouldn’t you do? The Cayman Islands seems to be riding through its own version of the ‘perfect storm’. It has faced the challenges of the OECD and successfully made it to the White List as a transparent jurisdiction, in signing over 12 tax treaties with other jurisdictions. A report on the partial suspension of the constitution ofthe Turks and Caicos Islands, a British overseas territory, and theprovisions in their place for the interim governance of the Islandsby the Governor. The International Monetary Fund – the most authoritative voice on world financial affairs – has given the Isle of Man ‘a clean bill of health’ with commendations for both the Financial Supervision Commission and the Insurance and Pensions Authority for the way in which they oversee the Island’s finance sector. The Gibraltar tax year runs from the 1st July to 30th June and on 25 June the Chief Minister Peter Caruana delivered his budget speech to reflect on the performance of the Gibraltar economy and set out the Government’s budget proposals for the fiscal year ending 30 June 2010. In 2007, as a result of HMRC receiving information from five major UK banks with offshore subsidiaries, HMRC offered an Offshore Disclosure Facility (“ODF”) which was designed to allow those people holding offshore accounts to declare those accounts and put their tax affairs in order. Very recently, the Jersey Royal Court stated that in certain very limited circumstances, including those before the court in that instance, a trustee has a duty to apply to court for the removal of a protector of the trust. Much has been published on the newly proposed Alternative Investment Fund Directive (‘AIFM’) which if materialises in its proposed form would affect all fund managers in Europe who manage or market a fund which is not regulated in Europe as suitable for retail sales (effectively, any non-UCITS fund). | 
