Cayman: The global capital of offshore disputes

Dominic Carman examines why litigants seeking to vindicate or enforce their rights with minimal risk increasingly flock to the Cayman courts.

International investors choose the Cayman Islands (Cayman) for a wide variety of reasons.

In doing so, they use Caymanincorporated entities, confident that any subsequent disputes will be resolved by the Cayman courts with the Privy Council as the final court of appeal. That confidence is founded on the certain knowledge that the jurisdiction is very well served by an abundance of high-quality international law firms with local offices, a specialist judiciary (The Financial Services Division of Cayman’s Grand Court) that wins numerous plaudits for its quality and bench strength, and the ready availability of top-drawer commercial silks from London to argue the highest value, most complex cases in front of them.

Typically, these cases relate either to investment fund disputes or Asian-based businesses – both public and private – which structure through Cayman for operational and tax reasons: for example, nearly 60% of Hong Kong Stock Exchangelisted companies are Caymanincorporated with most having their principal operations in the PRC.