On 4 September 2017, Her Honour Hazel Marshall Q.C., Lieutenant Bailiff, handed down judgment in the case of Carlyle Capital Corporation Limited (in Liquidation) and others v. Conway and others [2017] Civil Action No. 1510, one of the most anticipated judgments in recent Guernsey jurisprudence, and the first time that a Guernsey court has memorialised certain fundamental legal principles affecting directors and the companies they serve.

Running to 529 pages, HH Marshall LB’s tour de force of a judgment was reflective of the sheer enormity of the proceedings in terms of process. The case, which was commenced in July 2010, included: a statement of claim which ran to 252 pages; defences of the key protagonists and the independent directors running to 305 pages and 269 pages respectively; 107 lever arch files of evidence, including 4,872 identified documents; 16 expert witnesses; a trial schedule of 85 days (in the end reduced to 67 actual sitting days); and closing written submissions from the Plaintiffs at 1,331 pages and for the Defendants at 1,641 pages (with the judge noting that the defendants’ written closing submissions were mercifully, “less closely typed” than those of the Plaintiffs).