The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (“JCPC”) has today handed down its judgment in A & Ors v C & Ors [2026] UKPC 11. Henry Legge KC and Sam Chandler appeared for the Protectors.

The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (“JCPC”) has today handed down its judgment in A & Ors v C & Ors [2026] UKPC 11 – an important trust case about trust protectors. Henry Legge KC and Sam Chandler of 5 Stone Buildings were instructed by Toby Graham and Tom Williams of Farrer & Co on behalf of the protectors, including at the two-day hearing before the JCPC in November 2025.

The decision has been long awaited by trust practitioners. It has significant implications upon the operation of numerous offshore trusts which make provision for the appointment of protectors. The question before the JCPC, which is explained below, was one which has hitherto given rise to much uncertainty and judicial disagreement – including contrasting decisions in England, Jersey and Bermuda.

In summary outline, the case is about the precise circumstances in which a protector may withhold consent to a trustee’s decision. In most trusts which appoint protectors, the trustees will have to obtain their prior consent for certain types of decision. It is standard in offshore trust instruments that, save for expressly requiring protector consent for those decisions, the circumstances in which the protector can give or withhold consent is not specified. That gives rise to two rival possibilities:

• On one view (the Narrow Role), protectors can only withhold consent if the trustees’ decision is not an exercise which a reasonable body of properly informed trustees is entitled to undertake. In other words, the Narrow Role involves the protectors conducting a review of the lawfulness of trustees’ decision – much like the court under a Public Trustee v Cooper, category 2 blessing.
• The other view (the Wider Role) is that the protectors exercise an independent discretion as to whether or not to give consent to the proposed exercise. Under the Wider Role, protectors may withhold their consent even if the proposed exercise is one which the reasonable body of properly informed trustees is entitled to decide upon.

The JCPC ruled in favour of the Wider Role, departing from the lower decisions of the Supreme Court of Bermuda, and the Court of Appeal of Bermuda. Henry Legge KC and Sam Chandler’s protector clients were neutral in the appeal, but made submissions on the practical realities of decision-making under the Narrow Role and the Wider Role (which were addressed, and accepted at [112]-[113] of the JCPC’s judgment).

Whilst the JCPC’s analysis involves the interpretation of the specific trust instruments before it, it will undoubtedly have a material impact on numerous other trusts which adopt similar standard form provisions imposing the requirement of protector consent.

A copy of the judgment can be found here.