Citywealth quotes Robert Blower and Oliver Little on the intersection between trust structures and Sharia law

Citywealth speaks to Robert Blower, Partner, and Oliver Little, Senior Associate, on the intersection between trust structures and Sharia law. 

See a snippet of the piece below:

Considering that trusts are a historically British structure, when dealing with clients from the Middle East, does the interest in setting up a trust come from their end or is it something that you bring to them as an offer? What benefits do trust structures afford for Muslim families in particular, who are looking to structure their assets for both tax-efficient purposes and succession purposes?

Trusts are often a novel concept to Middle Eastern clients who can be concerned about the loss of control over their assets to an unknown third party located in a different jurisdiction.  While trusts can offer tax benefits, we also suggest them as a potential solution to clients’ planning or protection concerns.  Trusts allow the Settlor to determine who benefits, when and to what extent, from their wealth and can ensure it is held centrally in trusted hands for subsequent generations.  There are different ways in which the clients can continue to have some form of influence over the trusts during their lifetimes, as outlined above.  A well-designed trust structure can help prevent the fragmentation of business assets into the ownership of multiple individuals with disparate interests, which can have potentially damaging implications for the management and continuity of the business, while allowing a wide range of family members to benefit from the structure.

Clients are becoming increasingly aware of the flexibility and benefit of trusts – this is reflected in the inclusion of English trust law in the legal code of many recently-established special economic zones in the Middle East, such as Dubai’s DIFC and Abu Dhabi’s ADGM.

Read the full piece in Citywealth here.