Caroline Sayan
Caroline Sayan
President and CEO, Americas | Cadell + Co Ltd
JURISDICTION
England and Wales, Singapore, Hong Kong SAR, United States
TOP SPECIALISMS
Alternative Investments
Art and Cultural Property
Estates: Planning
Office Location
United States
Short Biography
Caroline Sayan is the President and CEO Americas of Cadell Inc art advisory which is an international group with offices in New York and London. Caroline has 30 years’ experience as a global art market executive at a major auction house. Caroline’s was responsible for global commercial and financial negotiations for estates and property for sale across 70 collecting categories and in over 7 country sale sites. Caroline has extensive knowledge of the Asian art market while living and working in China and oversaw the opening of the China market to western art auctions. Cadell provides professional advisors with executive level independent advice related to estate, sales, purchases and collection management.
What is your favorite restaurant to take a client or colleague to?
What is the best piece of advice you have ever received?
What was your first job?
What is the book you recommend to everyone?
What changes do you expect to see in your practice over the next year?
Caroline Tayler
Caroline Tayler
Partner | Taylor Wessing
JURISDICTION
TOP SPECIALISMS
Estates: Contentious
Probate
Trusts: Contentious
Office Location
London, United Kingdom
Short Biography
Caroline advises on a wide range of trust and estate disputes, both onshore and offshore. She has extensive experience acting in multijurisdictional trust disputes involving breach of trust, beneficiary rights of information and jurisdictional issues. Caroline has particular experience advising on issues of trust law arising in the context of divorce proceedings and has developed a strong reputation in this field, which often includes issue of rights of information and asset tracing. In addition, Caroline is often instructed to represent parties in multi-party trust applications to Court involving variations, agreed compromises or blessings of the exercise of trustee powers, and has acted in a number of such applications involving very substantial trust fortunes both onshore and offshore. Caroline also advises on the full range of probate disputes, 1975 Act claims and issues relating to capacity whether in the context of such claims or in the Court of Protection.
What is your favorite restaurant to take a client or colleague to?
Japanese
What is the best piece of advice you have ever received?
Work hard
What was your first job?
English as a foreign language teacher
What is the book you recommend to everyone?
The Velveteen Rabbit
What changes do you expect to see in your practice over the next year?
Tougher market
Catriona Syed
Catriona Syed
Senior Counsel | Charles Russell Speechlys
JURISDICTION
TOP SPECIALISMS
Trusts & Trusteeship
Trusts: Contentious
Trusts: Planning
Office Location
United Kingdom
Short Biography
Advises international individuals, trustees and family offices on a range of succession planning and related issues
What is your favorite restaurant to take a client or colleague to?
Cord
What is the best piece of advice you have ever received?
Clients want to know what to do, not what the law is
What was your first job?
Waitress
What is the book you recommend to everyone?
Tim Spector - Food for Life
What changes do you expect to see in your practice over the next year?
Increased interest in structuring but heavy regulation
Anthony Poulton
Anthony Poulton
Partner | Baker McKenzie
JURISDICTION
TOP SPECIALISMS
Estates: Contentious
Family Governance and Business
Trusts: Contentious
Office Location
London, United Kingdom
Short Biography
Anthony leads Baker McKenzie’s Trust Disputes team and represents clients involved in large scale, complex, international disputes involving trusts and succession. He is very familiar with a wide range of onshore and offshore jurisdictions, having represented clients involved cases in England, USA, Bermuda, BVI, Cayman, Gibraltar, Hong Kong, Singapore, Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man. He currently serves on the Committee of ACTAPS.
What is your favorite restaurant to take a client or colleague to?
Corrigans in Mayfair
What is the best piece of advice you have ever received?
Look after the people who look after you.
What was your first job?
Potting plants in a market garden outside Stroud in Gloucestershire.
What is the book you recommend to everyone?
Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari
What changes do you expect to see in your practice over the next year?
I think more of the same - challenging and diverse cases from all over the world. And more time in the office than in recent years.
Bart Peerless
Bart Peerless
Senior Partner | Charles Russell Speechlys
JURISDICTION
England and Wales
TOP SPECIALISMS
Estates: Planning
Trusts: Planning
Office Location
United Kingdom
Short Biography
Bart has 30 years’ experience acting for high-net-worth individuals, trustees and beneficiaries, based in both the UK and internationally, and advises in relation to succession and estate planning, on tax and on the use of trusts and other asset holding vehicles. He is lead partner for many of the Firm’s most significant private clients. He also acts for a number of Charitable Trusts and is a trustee of several charities. Bart was appointed the Firm’s Senior Partner in 2021, having led our award-winning Private Client practice for the previous seven years. In this role, he combines a significant and busy client practice, with this ambassadorial and management role, particularly focused on developing and delivering the Firm’s strategy in conjunction with the Managing Partner and enhancing the Firm’s external profile.
What is your favorite restaurant to take a client or colleague to?
What is the best piece of advice you have ever received?
What was your first job?
What is the book you recommend to everyone?
What changes do you expect to see in your practice over the next year?
Basil Zirinis
Basil Zirinis
Partner | Sullivan & Cromwell
JURISDICTION
United States, United Kingdom, Latin America, Singapore, Hong Kong SAR, China, Middle East
TOP SPECIALISMS
Estates: Planning
Family Governance and Business
Trusts: Contentious
Office Location
United States
Short Biography
Basil Zirinis has been a partner in S&C’s Estates and Personal Group since 1994 and leads its international private client practice from London and New York. He represents individuals, fiduciaries and family-controlled businesses throughout the world in a broad range of matters, including domestic and international estate and trust planning, family business governance and transition, estate and trust administration and litigation. He speaks regularly at international conferences regarding U.S. and international tax and estate planning.
What is your favorite restaurant to take a client or colleague to?
Oswald's in London
What is the best piece of advice you have ever received?
The safest place is at your desk
What was your first job?
Painting docks in a marina
What is the book you recommend to everyone?
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
What changes do you expect to see in your practice over the next year?
An increased focus by clients on strengthening their structures to anticipate crises that had become almost unthinkable, such as a major war in Europe.
Beatrice Puoti
Beatrice Puoti
Partner | Stephenson Harwood
JURISDICTION
TOP SPECIALISMS
Relocation and Cross-Border Advisory
Trusts: Planning
Tax Advisory
Office Location
United Kingdom
Short Biography
Beatrice is an international tax, trusts and cross border estates lawyer, she is dual qualified, and an expert in dealing with any legal and tax issues that may arise from Roman law and common law conflicts. Beatrice specialises in planning and dealing with all legal issues for Ultra High net worth families, entrepreneurs and individuals UK resident and non-domiciled, UK resident and domiciled, or non UK resident but with international interests, Family offices, Trustees and Private banks globally, and prides herself in being the long-term trusted advisor for her clients. Beatrice speaks internationally at some of the leading conferences in the Private Wealth sector. Beatrice has a multilingual practice and enjoys working with clients from global backgrounds.
What is your favorite restaurant to take a client or colleague to?
too many! maybe Sushi Samba?
What is the best piece of advice you have ever received?
This is a marathon not a sprint- the job of a lawyer....
What was your first job?
taking turists in Santorini on a donkey from the port to town-i sublet the donkey
What is the book you recommend to everyone?
La Divina Commedia, by Dante Alighieri
What changes do you expect to see in your practice over the next year?
With elections in the UK and the US coming, i am sure to meet much more often with clients who will wish to talk about the future and their planning.
Ben Lister
Ben Lister
Partner | Taylor Wessing
JURISDICTION
TOP SPECIALISMS
Estates: Planning
Family Office
Relocation and Cross-Border Advisory
Office Location
United Kingdom
Short Biography
Ben's core expertise is guiding clients through complex tax, legal and family issues, both in the UK and internationally. A key part of his practice involves advises ultra-high net worth individuals, families and family offices on tax, cross-border estate planning, structuring, as well as wider legal issues. Ben has extensive experience advising on inter-generational planning, corporate and family governance issues, investment structuring and cross-border relocations. He is frequently instructed to advise on the establishment and optimisation of wealth holding structures such as trusts, corporate entities and partnerships. Ben is highly active in the Middle East, where he travels frequently. Ben also advises many individuals from the financial services sector.
What is your favorite restaurant to take a client or colleague to?
What is the best piece of advice you have ever received?
What was your first job?
What is the book you recommend to everyone?
What changes do you expect to see in your practice over the next year?
Andrea Dunsby
Andrea Dunsby
Managing Partner | Circumference Legal (UK) Ltd
JURISDICTION
TOP SPECIALISMS
Commercial Litigation
Estates: Contentious
Trusts: Contentious
Office Location
London, United Kingdom
Short Biography
Andrea is an experienced private client lawyer primarily advising clients on dispute resolution issues. She also has expertise in insolvency, restructuring and fund disputes. She is an English qualified solicitor who has worked in Australia and was admitted in the Cayman Islands. Having spent a large proportion of her career offshore, she handles international litigation regularly and is used to coordinating teams of lawyers and other experts across jurisdictions. She is a long standing member of STEP.
What is your favorite restaurant to take a client or colleague to?
Hide in Piccadilly or The Brasserie in the Cayman Islands
What is the best piece of advice you have ever received?
If you have nothing good to say, then say nothing at all.
What was your first job?
Newspaper delivery round
What is the book you recommend to everyone?
It's hard to choose as I read novels voraciously and all sorts of genres. In the last year, I enjoyed The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo.
What changes do you expect to see in your practice over the next year?
I think we will see more trusts with distressed assets which is likely to lead to more claims against trustees.
Andrea Zavos
Andrea Zavos
Senior Partner | Boodle Hatfield
JURISDICTION
England and Wales
TOP SPECIALISMS
Estates: Contentious
Trusts: Contentious
Trusts: Planning
Office Location
United Kingdom
Short Biography
Andrea is the Senior Partner at Boodle Hatfield and a member of the contentious trust & estates team. She specialises in advising individuals, trustees and trust companies in complex, high value disputes both domestically and internationally. Andrea is aware that family relationships are often at stake and approaches the resolution of disputes with that in mind. She is highly regarded for her ability to engage with clients and other professionals in a sympathetic and constructive manner. She is able to absorb the emotive issues whilst focussing on the end game when acting for family members or trustees. She works closely with wealthy families on generational succession planning including wills, trusts, wealth protection structures and pre and post nuptial agreements.
What is your favorite restaurant to take a client or colleague to?
Galvin la Chapelle
What is the best piece of advice you have ever received?
Listen
What was your first job?
Assistant in an independent book shop
What is the book you recommend to everyone?
1984 George Orwell
What changes do you expect to see in your practice over the next year?
Increasing complexity around the grey area between age and capacity