Disclosure of trust documents to non-beneficiaries: latest guidance from Guernsey

Trustees holding confidential and commercially sensitive information and documents sometimes face claims for disclosure by third parties who are not within the beneficial class. 

The Guernsey Court of Appeal has recently provided helpful guidance on the court’s inherent jurisdiction to order a trustee to give disclosure to a person who is not the object of any dispositive power, but who is the object of a widely drawn power to be added to the beneficial class.

By its August 2025 decision in BX v T Ltd (as trustee of the W Trust) & ors, the Guernsey Court of Appeal dismissed an appeal (brought by such a third party) against the prior decision of the Guernsey Royal Court to refuse disclosure and in so doing confirmed the high bar that must be met for such disclosure applications to succeed.

Background

The proceedings concerned an application brought by BX against T Ltd (as the trustee of the W Trust) before the Royal Court of Guernsey for disclosure of extensive confidential information and documents about the trust and its underlying assets.  

The trust was a Guernsey law discretionary trust, which was settled in 2005 by BX’s father (a highly successful businessman, now deceased). Since inception, the sole beneficiaries of the trust were two of the settlor’s children, but did not include BX. Whilst the trust deed contained a widely drafted power to add beneficiaries, the power had never been exercised by the trustee.     

By his application to the Royal Court, BX sought wide-ranging disclosure of information and documentation, asserting that he was entitled to such disclosure by reason of what he considered to be a strong prospective interest in the trust, including on the basis that he claimed it was his father’s wish that he be added as a beneficiary. BX’s application was resisted by the trust’s beneficiaries. 

At first instance, the Royal Court dismissed the application in its entirety. In her judgment of February 2024, Lieutenant Bailiff Marshall KC found that BX had not demonstrated that he had a sufficiently strong claim to be added as a beneficiary of the trust and therefore had not persuaded the court to exercise its inherent jurisdiction to order disclosure. The judge also found that the disclosure application was not being pursued for any purpose legitimately connected with the proper administration of the trust. 

BX appealed the Royal Court’s decision on three main grounds:

1. that the judge erred in law as to the nature of the court’s inherent jurisdiction to order disclosure to the object of a power of addition;
2. that the judge erred in law as to the regard which the trustee ought to have to BX in exercising its dispositive powers; and
3. that, in view of the above, the judge was wrong to decide, in all the circumstances, that the trustee should not be directed to disclose the information sought by BX and was also wrong to hold that granting the application would not facilitate the proper administration of the trust.  

The Court of Appeal’s decision

The Court of Appeal upheld the Royal Court’s decision to refuse disclosure and dismissed BX’s appeal on all grounds. By its anonymised judgment, the Court of Appeal delivered a careful analysis of the law – including of English authorities – on the court’s power to order disclosure to a non-beneficiary who is the object of a widely drafted power to be added. In particular, the Court of Appeal:  

• concluded from the authorities that “it is necessary to look closely at the trust instruments and the surrounding circumstances in order to be able to ascertain, if possible, whether any particular object of a power to add beneficiaries was intended by the settlor to be treated in reality as the object of a dispositive power, on the basis that he or she was always intended to be added to the class of beneficiaries in due course” [87];
• held that there was “no bright line statutory test that we can apply” [95] and that it agreed with Lord Walker’s guidance in Schmidt v Rosewood that “an applicant with no more than a theoretical possibility of benefit ought not to be granted any relief”;
• said that it would go further than Schmidt and was “clear that, in order for such an object to be granted relief of the kind sought in the present case (that is, disclosure of trust documents and information), that person must show that it is right to treat him or her in as great a need of the protection of the court as the object of a dispositive power… In ordinary circumstances, that will mean showing, as a minimum, that the object has a strong, if not a very strong, expectation (objectively speaking) of being appointed in due course to the class of objects of the dispositive power."; and
• noted that, in considering that question, it would be necessary to take into account all the relevant circumstances including but not limited to the width of the power of addition, the relationship between the object and the settlor, other provision made by the settlor for the object and whether there was anyone else to hold the trustee to account.

Applying those principles, the Court of Appeal held that the Royal Court was correct in law as to the nature of the court’s inherent jurisdiction and was therefore correct to refuse the disclosure application, noting that, on the materials before it, it would have made the same decision as the Royal Court. More specifically, in reaching its decision, the Court of Appeal held that:

• on the material before it, BX did not have “a strong, let alone a very strong, expectation of being appointed a beneficiary” [168], finding it relevant that there was neither a letter of wishes nor other persuasive evidence of the settlor having such an intention;
• the proper purpose of the trust did not include the benefit of BX and that the objects were deliberately restricted to the sole named beneficiaries [139]; and
• the disclosure application had the hallmarks of a “fishing expedition” for collateral purposes, which would be an illegitimate purpose for which to order the disclosure sought [164]. The Court also expressed wariness about disclosing confidential trust information to someone who was not a beneficiary but who was hostile to the beneficiaries, so as to risk exacerbating hostilities between them, contrary to the interests of the beneficiaries themselves.

Why is the decision important?

The decision is a useful and comprehensive analysis and development of case law that will be of interest to both English and offshore trust practitioners in cases where strangers to a trust who fall within wide (even worldwide) powers of addition bring applications for disclosure of confidential trust information, against the interests of the beneficiaries themselves.

Hostile disclosure applications of this nature are not unusual in the context of the increasingly globalised nature of trust disputes. The Court of Appeal’s decision makes clear, however, that applicants in such cases will face a high bar.

Read the full Court of Appeal judgment: BX v T Ltd (as trustee of the W Trust) & ors (Guernsey Court of Appeal, 20 August 2025)  

Macfarlanes advised the beneficiaries of the trust in collaboration with Walkers in Guernsey (Adam Cole and Laurent Thibeault) and Serle Court Chambers in London (Richard Wilson KC and Harry Martin).