Walkers has been named Law Firm of the Year for the Caribbean at the prestigious 2020 IFC Awards in London.
Now in their ninth year, the Citywealth International Financial Centre Awards were established to highlight the excellence of advisers and managers in the private wealth sector in major international financial centres.
The firm's Private Capital and Trusts Group, led by partner Philip Paschalides, won the award covering the jurisdictions of Bahamas, Bermuda and Cayman, which was collected on their behalf last night by Louise Hall, the managing partner of Walkers' Guernsey office.
The award comes as the team continues to grow - last year, Monique Bhullar and Clive Thomas from the firm's Private Capital and Trusts team in Cayman were promoted to the partnership, and Jo-Anne Stephens in the same team was promoted to senior counsel. The awards recognise firms that have "excelled in achievement, innovation, expertise and service" and are judged by an independent panel of experts covering all of the offshore jurisdictions.
The international Walkers trusts disputes team was also recognised at the awards, being named runner up in the Litigation category.
Philip Paschalides said: "Walkers has invested significantly in our global Private Capital & Trusts Practice Group in response to increasing client demand across all our offices in the Caribbean, Asia and Europe and in response to what we see as a fundamental shift in the role played by non-institutional capital. With increasing concentration of international capital in private hands and the increasingly important role that such capital plays in financial and financing activity, this is a client base which needs technical skill, international depth, institutional experience and creative legal solutions. We're very pleased on behalf of our Caribbean teams, as well as our global teams across Guernsey, Hong Kong, Jersey and Singapore, to have been recognised for the exciting work we do with our UHNW, family office, private banking and fiduciary clients."