About
Molly has over 4 years’ experience in our global private client team. Based in our Geneva office, Molly is at the epicentre of private capital.
Molly’s practice centres around the private wealth of HNW and UHNW individuals based anywhere in the world, either working directly with these individuals to advise on the structuring of wealth both during and after lifetime and in case of incapacity, or working directly with fiduciaries, executors and intermediaries on administering wealth and existing structures or in the creation of new structures.
Molly’s work is both non-contentious and contentious from planning, advisory and restructuring work to managing, mediating and litigating disputes (or potential disputes) concerning the protection, administration and recovery of private assets. Examples of Molly’s recent work are given below.
Molly is admitted to practise in England and Wales and is a full member of Geneva Bar Association, L’Ordre Des Avocats de Genève.
Experience
- Advised and prepared estate planning documents for a young HNW family based in Geneva with connections and assets in the UK, Switzerland, Singapore and France taking into account the laws applicable to the succession of their estates, the relevant tax regimes and Double Taxation Treaties, and the possible use of trusts where both common law and civil law jurisdictions are involved.
- Successfully recovered valuable shares in a UK private company through an application to the English High Court for our HNW Kenyan national client. The claim was against a Geneva-based fiduciary and the client’s family member who was employed by the fiduciary. She had settled our client’s shares on an Isle of Man trust without his knowledge and to his entire exclusion. Worked alongside a Chancery Bar KC in England and secured an indemnity costs order against the defendants.
- Investigated on behalf of executors of a UK estate the discovery c.$20m of assets in the US not previously disclosed to the UK tax authorities by the HNW UK resident and domiciled deceased during his lifetime. Prepared and filed a voluntary tax disclosure to HMRC, negotiated with the US custodian of the assets to arrange payment of the unpaid UK tax, and provided all associated UK tax advice (and coordinated similar Australian tax advice) on the treatment of US assets for UK tax purposes and the impact on the administration of the estate and the Will Trusts created by the deceased’s Will.
- Advised and secured cross-border recognition of English Lasting Powers of Attorney in Switzerland. Prepared the necessary application to the English Court of Protection, coordinated appropriate medical reports from a specialist doctor, and worked with a Geneva branch of a prominent global bank to enable funds to be released to support our client’s ailing relatives, resident in the UK, who no longer had mental capacity to make their own decisions.
- Took the lead on the restructuring of two long-standing dynastic trusts settled by the head of an UHNW Swiss-Italian family through which a large interest in the family’s operating business worth c.$3bn was held. This involved unpicking historic actions taken within the trusts, providing detailed advice on perpetuity periods and the role of a protector, and overhauling the terms of the trust so as to be fit for purpose and looking forward to the handover of wealth and control to the next generation. Worked alongside Jersey counsel.
- Advised the wealth creator of a UHNW individual based in the UAE on a complex trust structure including use of a Swiss PTC and on matters of family governance on the handover of wealth to the next generation including the utility of a family constitution document.
- Continues to advise Swiss trustees on their obligations vis-a-vis the administration of a BVI law governed trust in the context of an acrimonious divorce between two beneficiaries including the non-submission to the English jurisdiction, and relevant considerations when dealing with requests for loans and distributions from a trust with limited liquidity. Also providing UK tax and trust reporting advice in light of new UK tax rules in effect from 6 April 2025 following a member of the beneficial class becoming long-term resident.
