FSD judge to commute to work in Cayman
Justice Nigel Clifford QC
(CNS Business): A non-resident judge has begun sitting in the financial services division of the Cayman Islands Grand Court but he will be presiding over cases by commuting and through video link and conference calls as he lives in the UK. Justice Nigel Clifford QC, a former Cayman resident, was a leading attorney in the infamous BCCI case, then the world’s largest-ever financial insolvency, and has a long history with Cayman.
Justice Clifford, who was sworn in via Skype in January, worked in Cayman as an attorney for many years. Pleased to round off his career in the financial courts, he said he would use his experience in the role.
“Cayman has been a very important part of my life and I am very grateful to have been given the opportunity to maintain my connection with the Cayman Islands and to serve in this capacity,” he said this week.
Welcoming him to the bench, Chief Justice Anthony Smellie said his acquaintance with the Cayman judiciary goes back a long way. CJ Smellie, who was the supervising judge in the BCCI case, said that the judicial administration was fortunate to have attracted someone “with the strong intellectual capabilities and unyielding work ethic required to meet the demands of the Grand Court, and especially of the FSD, in today’s commercial environment”.
Justice Clifford’s local knowledge and experience of Cayman law and practice will enable him from the outset to deal with the full range of cases coming before the court, Smellie added.
Clifford has served as a previous president of the Cayman Islands Law Society and was involved in government initiatives arising from the OECD, FATF and other reports. He was a member of the Private Sector Consultative Committee, during which service he undertook drafting and advisory work with special emphasis on corporate and international finance practice in the context of an international financial jurisdiction. In 2005 he became the first chairman of the Cayman Islands Law Reform Commission.
Involved also in civil initiatives, he was a founding director of the Cayman Hospice Care.
Beginning his professional life here in Cayman, he was employed in 1987 as an associate at Hunter & Hunter. Practising in civil and commercial litigation, he appeared before the courts of Cayman in a wide range of cases and became Partner in 1991, and Senior Litigation Partner in 1995. He later became Senior Counsel in Appleby Cayman (formerly Hunter & Hunter). He was appointed Queen’s Counsel in 2004.
Category: Finance, Financial Crime, Financial Services, Uncategorized
