New Zealand’s Active Investor Plus Visa offers high net worth individuals and their families a flexible pathway to residency and, ultimately, citizenship. Combining lifestyle appeal with political and economic stability, it allows investors to secure a base in one of the world’s most desirable and well-governed nations. This Insight explores the visa’s key categories, tax implications, and strategic considerations for international families seeking a safe, tax-efficient haven for both residence and investment.

Legal advice privilege has long protected the confidentiality of client-lawyer communications — but how does this apply when shareholders want access to legal advice obtained by the company they partly own? The Privy Council’s decision in Jardine Strategic v Oasis Investment reshapes our understanding of joint privilege, with significant implications for shareholder rights, governance structures, and family offices operating across jurisdictions.

As wealth becomes increasingly global, traditional borders offer diminishing protection for personal assets. Differences in succession, taxation, and matrimonial property laws across jurisdictions can expose even the most carefully structured portfolios to unforeseen risks. This Insight explores the complexities of cross-border estate planning — from domicile, residence, and nationality to the situs of assets — and outlines the key considerations for protecting wealth, preserving family harmony, and ensuring a smooth transfer to future generations.

The case of Sidoli v Sidoli highlights the ongoing tension between common law and civil law systems in matters of succession. At its core lies a question of whether foreign judgments on inheritance can override English testamentary freedom. The English Court reaffirmed that succession to immovable property in England is governed exclusively by English law — limiting the extraterritorial reach of foreign courts and reinforcing the principle of national jurisdiction over estate matters. This decision underscores the importance of careful cross-border estate planning to prevent future disputes.

Climate risk is no longer a distant environmental concern, it’s a financial reality for high-net-worth individuals and the wealth managers who advise them. As governments around the world push toward net-zero targets, the cost of doing business in a carbon-intensive way is rising sharply. Carbon taxes, emissions trading schemes, and border adjustment measures are reshaping global markets, increasing operational costs, and influencing long-term wealth preservation strategies.

Wealth that endures beyond generations demands not only vision but vigilance. In an increasingly volatile world, the forces threatening family wealth — from climate change and privacy erosion to political uncertainty — are both multiplying and evolving. This Insight explores how modern families of wealth can balance creation with preservation through strategic foresight, integrated risk management, and informed decision-making. Drawing lessons from history’s most enduring dynasties, it highlights why adaptability, discretion, and access to timely information remain the cornerstones of lasting legacy.

What allows wealth to endure when so many fortunes fade? In this thought-provoking Insight, Vibha Vallabh of Ellora Private Office explores the unseen forces that hold family legacies together — from values and education to governance and identity. Drawing on lessons from historic families whose prosperity has spanned centuries, she reveals why true wealth is sustained not by inheritance alone, but by the people, principles, and purpose behind it.

The Privy Council’s decision in Grand View v Wong [2022] UKPC 47 serves as a defining reminder of the limits of trustee discretion and the importance of exercising fiduciary powers for their proper purpose. The case examined whether trustees acted lawfully when transferring assets from a family trust to a purpose trust in reliance on broad discretionary powers. The Board held that such powers must be used only to advance the purposes for which they were conferred, reaffirming the “proper purpose” principle and setting a critical precedent for trustees managing complex family structures.

As digital assets become an increasingly common part of modern wealth portfolios, questions of ownership, protection, and succession take on new complexity. In this Insight, Vibha Vallabh of Ellora Private Office examines how traditional trust structures can be effectively adapted to safeguard cryptocurrency and other virtual assets. Drawing on key legal cases such as Ruscoe v Cryptopia and Quoine v B2C2, she explores the recognition of cryptocurrency as property, the application of trust principles to digital holdings, and the practical considerations for structuring, managing, and securing these high-risk assets within a compliant and resilient framework.

The tension between settlor control and trustee independence is as old as the trust itself — yet it continues to test the limits of modern wealth structures. In this Insight, Vibha Vallabh examines two landmark cases, Mezprom Bank v Pugachev and Zhang Hong Li v DBS, which expose the risks of passive trusteeship and excessive settlor influence. Drawing lessons from both judgments, she explores how evolving court attitudes are redefining fiduciary duty and why trust integrity depends on balance — not dominance. The paper concludes with a forward-looking framework for settlors and trustees to cooperate within traditional legal constraints while maintaining flexibility through modern structures such as foundations.