Conference programme

Private wealth comes under scrutiny; the boundaries between wealth planning, dispute resolution and criminal enforcement can quickly disappear. Tax investigations, allegations of financial misconduct, asset-freezing measures and competing claims can place individuals, families, trustees, and their advisers under intense pressure - often across multiple jurisdictions. Bringing together wealth planning, high-profile families, litigation, white-collar crime, anti-money laundering (AML) and compliance perspectives, this panel will explore how advisers can respond when a client’s affairs enter distress. Topics will include the vulnerability of individuals, trusts, and other wealth-holding structures; asset preservation versus unlawful asset shielding; disclosure and reporting obligations; legal privilege; and the risks facing advisers and fiduciaries. Through practical scenarios, panellists will examine how to coordinate a cross-border response, manage conflicting duties, and protect clients’ legitimate interests.

While clients may think about what should happen to their assets and who should benefit after their death, they often overlook the practicalities of estate administration, especially when multiple jurisdictions are involved.  This panel will consider the quirks and possible complications both in universal succession and probate systems, as well as circumstances and ways in which succession and probate can be avoided all together. As well as addressing some frequent misconceptions, the speakers will also share some useful suggestions based on their respective practices (with a few war stories and cautionary tales!)

As AI and international relationships reshape business models and wealth creation, private clients face increasingly complex tax, residency, succession, and reporting challenges across jurisdictions. This roundtable helps participants explore the legal and practical impact on their clients and practices, providing practical insights on risk management, cross-border planning, and preserving wealth in a rapidly changing global environment.

Every cross-border relocation carries legal and tax consequences that can be costly without proper planning and advisory. This roundtable brings together practitioners from different jurisdictions to share practical tips on arriving in a new country and leaving the old one. Continental breakfast will be provided.

Wealth is not just something to inherit. It comes with choices, responsibilities and, often, a role to play. This session will explore how entrepreneurial families prepare the next generation to understand the family’s wealth and what it means to own and/or manage family assets, including the family business. We will discuss when and how to start the conversation, how much the next generation should know, and how families can help younger members develop the knowledge, judgement and sense of responsibility needed to become informed owners and, where appropriate, future managers.

Most private client sessions look at what we advise on; this panel looks at how we do it. Practitioners from different jurisdictions and types of firms will share candid, practical views on the realities of running a private client practice today. They will cover identifying who the client is when advising a whole family, pricing advice that spans generations, managing conflicts, compliance and reputational risk, and working alongside banks, family offices and trustees while keeping our independence. They will also discuss recruiting, training and retaining the next generation of practitioners, and how to use technology and AI safely with confidential family information.

Every great collection starts with a moment of wonder, but then several questions arise: how to hold it, transfer it, or protect it?  In this session, we discuss how good planning helps maintain a collection’s value, as well as the stories and inspiration that make it worth sharing with generations to come, from acquisition and structuring to management, financing, and passing on priceless works.

China and India are home to a fast-growing share of the world's high-net-worth families, and both are seeing large amounts of wealth pass to the next generation. Advisers to these families face real complexity. This session looks at the main succession, compliance, and tax issues that arise when advising Chinese and Indian families and their global structures. Topics include how family ownership principles interact with offshore trusts and holding companies, and how far foreign wills and trusts are recognised and enforced in each jurisdiction. The session also considers the effect of tax residence and the reach of each country's tax rules, the practical challenges of exchange controls and moving assets offshore, and the growing transparency created by CRS and beneficial ownership regimes.

All delegates are invited to join the Committee Officers at an open business meeting to discuss the planning of next year’s London conference and other activities of the Private Client Tax Committee.