ABSTRACT
Across the common-law trust world, settlors entrench family wealth structures with confidentiality clauses, reserved powers, duty-excluding clauses, protector vetoes, no-contest clauses, firewalls and exclusive-jurisdiction clauses. This article argues that none of these devices can oust the court’s irreducible supervisory jurisdiction over the administration of a trust: they merely relocate the dispute to information rights, to the validity of the structure, or to another forum. Surveying English, offshore, Hong Kong, Singapore, Swiss, and Liechtenstein law through the family conflicts that arise when a legacy divides, it contends that contentious-trust risk is ultimately a problem of trustee conduct, not of drafting.
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Alexander Ressos, Contentious trusts: when legacies divide – The court’s supervisory jurisdiction, the integrity of the trust and the limits of settlor control in cross-border family disputes – English, offshore, Hong Kong, Singapore, Swiss, and Liechtenstein perspectives, Trusts & Trustees. Published: 1 September 2026.
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