Conference programme

This presentation will review global trends in philanthropy, comparing the methods and incentives for giving worldwide. Expert panellists will compare and contrast themes and core questions including:

· What is the demographic profile of a philanthropist?

· What motivates philanthropists?

· How is philanthropy structured?

· By giving tax breaks, are States incentivising philanthropists to pursue their own agenda?

As a result of major crises such as the USA-China commercial battle, continuing economic effects of Covid, run-away causes by socialist-communist political movements in some countries, and the current European entanglement with transparency regulation, asset protection has re-emerged as a critical part of private client planning. There is a demand on lawyers to address the needs of personal security, family migration, political abuse, financial and market volatility, family business internationalisation, rather than solely focusing on tax. This panel will analyse how the legal profession is dealing with such protection needs without violating the transparency world and the responsibility imposed on advisors.

Participants will meet in small groups for an interactive discussion on the current issues and developments in their jurisdictions in the private client sector.

Middle Eastern clients often use offshore/overseas entities to structure the assets they acquire all over the world. What are the main reasons for that, and for not using more often structures such as UAE Trusts and Foundations, Saudi family offices/ corporations and others? What are the main characteristics of these entities and is it ‘safe’ to use them whether by Middle Eastern clients or foreign clients to the region? This panel will address these topics, including a history of the above-mentioned structures, to whom and to which assets/projects this structuring is addressed and whether the structures in the Middle east might ‘replace’ other classical structures notably for the Middle Eastern clients.

Developing the next generation of private client lawyers has become only more complex as people evaluate and renegotiate the ways that they want to live and work in a post-pandemic world. Developments like flexible working patterns and alternative career paths drive organisations to find innovative solutions in this new era. In this roundtable the participants will discuss their experiences of recruiting, retaining and developing the next generation of private client lawyers, seen from the perspective of both senior management and the next generation.

Continental breakfast will be provided.

The next-generation members of our UHNW mobile private client families are spreading out around the globe. In new countries, the next generation finds and employs new ways to build their families. Please join this experienced panel of family law lawyers and international private client lawyers as they dissect the intricacies of advising families built by assisted reproductive technologies including posthumous conception and surrogacy, possibly in modern/untraditional family forms such as LGBTQ relationships or polyamorous relationships, and possibly in countries whose parentage laws permit a court to order that a child has more than two parents. How do these advancements in the law affect existing plans? How should we be advising our clients from a planning perspective going forward?

The legal world has been working at short breath. Clients want answers to their questions that are often sent by e-mail or messenger provider systems at once. However, their matters have a longer breath, and solutions provided may no longer be fit because circumstances have changed. Such changes can occur anywhere between highly personal issues such as sudden hostile divorces, spontaneous planning-free marriages, death or birth of persons entitled to an estate, the falling-out with relatives, the rise or fall of family fortunes, sanctions imposed on the client or a family member, changes in the law and in the taxation, and unexpected changes in the order of decease.

· What happens if the legal solutions suggested by the legal team do not reflect the change nobody expected?

· As from when is there exposure for the law firm and/or advising lawyer?

· What is the legal standard to take changes into account?

· How much change expectation must we bear when advising?

Is a family office right for ‘your family’? Considerations include

· where to set it up

· how to staff it

· what is its role

· what challenges does it face in dealing with the family and outsiders

· privilege issues

· costs

· conflicts among family members.

Here an insider’s view of being inside the family office and the outsider’s view of advising the family office.

· What will it do: own staff or just employ people, one jurisdiction or multiple?

· Regulatory consequences of what it does and where it sits?

· How to pay for it?

· What is its role vis à vis the family and vis à vis the investments or assets of the family?

· What is the role of the family office vs management of family businesses?

· What challenges does it face in dealing with the family: privilege issues, costs, conflicts among family members and other considerations?

· What challenges do advisors face dealing with family offices: Incomplete information, gatekeeping?

· What challenges to family offices face dealing with advisors: lack of clarity, practical and actionable advice?

Increased transparency and extensive Know Your Customer procedures are sweeping the globe. What has this meant for traditional offshore jurisdictions? For onshore jurisdictions? And which jurisdictions should we consider as ‘in transition’? What could current changes mean in the future? On which 'shores' are our clients are located, and is that the correct place for them? And for us? Do tax benefits and asset security really outweigh compliance burdens? Or is it time to repatriate and, going forward, gravitate towards onshore accounts and structures?

Using experts from various jurisdictions, and with the active participation of you all, this session will explore (and grade) the advantages and disadvantages of the new treatment of onshore and offshore jurisdiction, and check all that is in between these two, to encourage new thinking as to where and how to place structures, assets, and people.