By Steve Meiklejohn, Matthew Davies

The Royal Court of Jersey, in the recently handed down judgment in M v W Limited and Others, has provided useful guidance for trustees in circumstances, outside the context of discovery in adversarial litigation, where a beneficiary of a trust is seeking disclosure of trust information.

The application was heard in October 2017, and the Royal Court carefully considered the meaning of Article 29 of the Trusts (Jersey) Law 1984 (the Law) (as it was in force at the time). The application was brought by one of the beneficiaries of a trust who was seeking delivery of a broad range of documents including: copies of all trust instruments; the latest accounts for the trust; the most recent financial statements for all underlying companies owned by the trust; and details of all distributions made from the trust.