Mourant Ozannes is delighted to announce the Chief Justice of the Cayman Islands, the Honourable Anthony Smellie Q.C., J.P. as keynote speaker of Mourant Ozannes’ International Trusts & Private Client Conference 2012, taking place in October.

The Chief Justice has had an illustrious career spanning decades in his home country Jamaica, as well as in the Cayman Islands, and has spoken and lectured at many international fora.  Mr. Smellie was appointed Chief Justice of the Cayman Islands in June 1998.  He is an Honorary Bencher of Grays Inn, London, an Honorary Fellow with the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies at the University of London, a Patron of the Commonwealth Law Journal of Oxford University Press, an Honorary Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies at the University of London, and holds an Honorary Doctor of Laws from Liverpool University.

Chief Justice Smellie has overseen a number of fundamental reforms to the court system of the Cayman Islands, including the establishment in November 2009 of a Financial Services Division of the Grand Court, which allows for cases in this division (up to 70% of all commercial cases in the jurisdiction) to move through the system in a more streamlined and timely manner.

Morven McMillan, Head of Mourant Ozannes’ Cayman Islands International Trusts & Private Client team, said:  “We are honoured to have the Chief Justice leading our day as keynote speaker. We are very much looking forward to welcoming the Chief Justice, along with all of our other expert speakers and delegates to the conference on 5 October and hearing the ways in which the Cayman Islands courts make a key contribution to the economic strength of these Islands.”

The Mourant Ozannes’ International Trusts & Private Client Conference will take place on Friday 5 October at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Grand Cayman, and will bring together a number of renowned guest speakers and Mourant Ozannes’ own expert lawyers from the Cayman Islands, Guernsey, Jersey and London.  The conference is being hosted in collaboration with Rawlinson & Hunter and Butterfield, with CIBC Bank and Trust Company (Cayman) Limited sponsoring the keynote address.  The delegate fee is US$500 with discounts available for multiple bookings. Delegates are invited to register at www.mourantozannes.com/itpc2012

Mourant Ozannes’ vision is to be consistently recognised as the leading law firm offshore.

Mourant Ozannes:

advises on the laws of the BVI, the Cayman Islands, Guernsey and Jersey;

has over 50 partners and 440 staff in five offices, spanning Asian, American and European time zones;

was named ‘Offshore Law Firm of the Year, 2011’ by The Lawyer and Chambers Europe;

has more top tier directory rankings across its locations than any other offshore law firm (Chambers & Partners, IFLR1000, Legal 500 and PLC Which Lawyer, 2012);

advises more FTSE 100 and FTSE 250 companies than any other offshore law firm (Hemscott, 2012)

advises 19 of the world’s top 20 banks (Bankers Almanac, 2012