Multi-Jurisdiction Advisory, Governance & Disputes | PCD Monaco Conference 2026

If the morning's sessions had focused principally on how to structure wealth, the late afternoon's multi-jurisdiction advisory panel examined what happens when things go wrong — and what good advisers can do to prevent them. The discussion ranged from the psychology of family communication to the mechanics of cross-border tax disputes, from the implications of Middle East instability for mobile clients to the coming wave of crypto-related family revelations.

Chaired by David Bell, the panel comprised Dominique Calco of Holistic Law Firm (Zurich), Gary Ashford of Harbottle & Lewis (London), Jo Vanbelle of Vanbelle Law Boutique (Belgium), and Cécile Vuillier, Founding Partner of META OCTAV Group. Their collective experience spanned contentious tax, private client law, cross-border family dynamics, and trust management — and they brought a candour to the discussion that the complexity of the topic deserved.

The Psychology Behind the Dispute

Calco opened with a perspective that distinguished her from most panellists at a wealth advisory conference: she is not only a lawyer but a life and business counsellor, and she focuses on prevention of litigation as well as litigation itself. Her observation was fundamental: most serious family disputes are not really about law, structure, or money.

They are about psychology — about narcissistic or dominant parents, about silent treatment that calcifies into formal estrangement, about family members who feel excluded or disrespected in ways that predate any legal question by years or decades. By the time a dispute reaches litigation, the underlying dynamics have usually been visible for a long time. The adviser's job is to create conditions in which those dynamics can be addressed while the patriarch or matriarch is still alive and engaged.

The Trustee's Role

Vuillier addressed the trustee's role with characteristic directness: the first task when meeting a new family is to assemble the right team. Complex families across multiple jurisdictions require multiple experts, but someone needs to hold the strategy, ensure the experts are communicating with each other and with the family, and maintain a coherent thread through the complexity. That someone is the trustee.

Regular in-person contact is not optional: "I don't understand trustees who never meet their clients," she said. "You cannot get to know people on Zoom. It's impossible." In the Middle East and Asia, in particular, five or six face-to-face meetings are a prerequisite for any genuine working relationship.

When Things Go Wrong: The Tax Dispute Perspective

Ashford, describing himself as "Mr. Fixer" for complex international tax disputes, emphasised the importance of never being shocked — by the range of situations that create tax problems, by the irrationality of clients under pressure, or by the consequences of acting without advice. He described clients who had been arrested at airports with laptops, who had accumulated receipts from petrol stations and run them through their FTSE 100 company's accounts, who had returned to the UK far too quickly from "tax-efficient" jurisdictions and walked straight into significant liabilities.

His mantra: "Put a cold towel around your head and come up with a plan. Then move forward."

Four Preconditions for Sound Cross-Border Advisory

Vanbelle offered four preconditions for sound cross-border advisory: know what you are talking about before referring to a colleague; monitor what is happening in the jurisdictions you recommend; understand that tax law is not everything; and maintain genuine flexibility as circumstances evolve.

He cited the current Middle East situation as a live illustration of the last point: some colleagues had flown to Monaco from the Emirates, and whether they could return was genuinely uncertain. A case, he argued, is a living creature — it adapts to circumstances, and so must the advice.

Information Rights and the Privilege Trap

The discussion of information rights in trust structures was one of the session's most practically detailed passages. Vuillier described the challenge of managing beneficiaries who want information about trust assets while the patriarch has instructed her not to share it. "The assets belong to them," she observed, "but I'm not the one to force a decision. I need their blessing."

Ashford noted that UK law provides various mechanisms — from formal legal authority to HMRC notices — but that the critical question is always whether what parties believe to be legally privileged actually is. "Clients think they're talking to someone who's given them privilege, and they haven't — and then it comes out when HMRC requires documents."

Switzerland, and the Crypto Wave Coming

Calco closed the main discussion with a timely observation about Switzerland: a June vote on an initiative that would require review of bilateral contracts with the EU if Switzerland's population reaches 9.5 million is something advisers should be tracking closely. Clients thinking about relocating to Switzerland should be encouraged to move quickly — the 2012 secondary homes initiative provided a cautionary example of how a vote can close options with very short notice.

Ashford delivered the session's most pointed final warning: crypto information exchange between the UK and other participating countries begins in January 2026. He sits on the OECD working group on crypto exchange of information. The consequence, he predicted, would be a new wave of family disputes as assets that families were unaware of are revealed — potentially creating revelations similar in their disruptive impact to those that followed the introduction of CRS banking exchange in earlier years. "Watch this space," he said, "for the amount of people who've got crypto that families don't know about."