This article looks at some of the issues that arose in the Alhamrani litigation before the Royal Court of Jersey and seeks to draw out some lessons. The case originated from an extraordinarily acrimonious dispute between nine of the Alhamrani siblings, who had become locked in a bitter and herculean struggle to obtain control over family assets located in Saudi and in Jersey which held the family’s foreign assets.

The two Jersey trusts were known as the Intertraders and Internine Trusts the trustees of which were caught in the crossfire between warring family factions. Litigation ensued in both jurisdictions, a total of 16 claims being brought in Jersey, and numerous actions being pursued in Saudi between family members. These took place in private, making it difficult to ascertain precisely what was at issue.

The Jersey proceedings raised numerous and complex issues – and led to the largest trial in Jersey history in a specially adapted venue. The recent settlement of the case has deprived those practitioners involved with Shari’a trusts of clarification of practical and legal issues that are commonly encountered.

One issue raised in the Jersey litigation was the potential mismatch between a discretionary trust – conferring wide dispositive powers on trustees and giving beneficiaries no proprietary rights – and fixed property rights conferred by Shari’a succession law. This mismatch led to suggestions that the trustees discretions were not as wide as they had previously believed. Because distributions did not accord with Shari’a shares, it was suggested that trustees were in breach of trust...