News & Events

The August 2019 judgment of Kawaley J, sitting in the Grand Court of the Cayman Islands (the “Grand Court”), in Riad Tawfiq Al Sadik v Investcorp Bank B.S.C & Ors (FSD 47 of 2009) has provided litigants with judicial guidance of general application concerning interim payments on account of costs. The reasons provided are the most detailed since the introduction of the interim payments jurisdiction into the Grand Court Rules in 2016, concluding that the Rules contain “an implicit starting assumption that an interim payment should be made”. This is in stark contrast to the approach taken prior to the introduction of the rule, when the inherent jurisdiction to order interim payments was exercised only in “rare and exceptional circumstances”.

On 29 July 2019, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council handed down its judgment in Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken AB v Conway & Shakespeare (as joint official liquidators of Weavering Macro Fixed Income Fund Ltd) (Cayman Islands) [2019] UKPC 36. The Privy Council upheld the decisions of the Cayman Islands Grand Court and Court of Appeal in finding that certain redemption payments received by Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken AB (Publ) (“SEB”) from Weavering Macro Fixed Income Fund Ltd (the “Company”) shortly prior to the Company’s liquidation constituted voidable preferences and requiring SEB to repay those amounts to the Company’s joint official liquidators (“JOLs”).

On 19 March 2019, the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force ("CFATF") issued its latest assessment of the Cayman Islands’ AML/CTF/CFP regime (the "March Report"). The assessment evaluated technical compliance (i.e. having legislation in place) but also, for the first time for the Cayman Islands, evaluated the effectiveness of Cayman Islands legislation.