The role of Jersey in Middle East cross-border structuring

For lawyers and advisers working with Middle Eastern clients, cross-border structuring is no longer defined by where assets are held, but by how governance, control and succession operate across jurisdictions over time.

Families are increasingly mobile, assets are more international, and regulatory approaches, while aligned in principle, continue to diverge in practice. In the Middle East, cross-border structuring is therefore shaped by regulatory divergence, international family residency and an increasingly complex geopolitical backdrop.

The result is a structural tension between governance, assets and beneficiaries, who are often located in different jurisdictions yet need to operate as a coherent whole.

The key question is therefore where control should sit relative to asset location and family residence - and how that balance can be maintained as circumstances evolve.

Where Jersey adds value in cross-border structures

In this context, advisers are increasingly looking for a jurisdiction that can anchor governance without constraining the flexibility of the wider structure.

Jersey is rarely used as a standalone solution in this context. More often, it acts as a jurisdiction through which governance can be stabilised while other elements remain flexible - particularly in mandates involving GCC families with globally held assets and internationally dispersed beneficiaries.

In practice, it enables the following outcomes.

• Neutral governance between regimes: For GCC families with assets and beneficiaries across multiple jurisdictions, Jersey offers a politically and legally neutral platform for centralising fiduciary oversight and decision-making.
• Separation of control and asset location: Governance can sit in Jersey, while operating assets remain in higher-growth or strategically important regions such as the Middle East, Europe or Asia.
• Operational recognition across borders: Jersey’s trusts, foundations and private fund structures are widely recognised by international institutions and regulators, reducing friction in banking, reporting and administration.
• Flexibility in succession frameworks: Structures can be adapted to reflect common law, Shari’a principles, or hybrid approaches.
• Structures can evolve over time: Jersey structures can adapt to changes in family circumstances, residency and asset location without requiring wholesale reorganisation.

Taken together, this positions Jersey as an effective anchoring point for governance within a broader, multi-jurisdictional structure, providing stability without limiting flexibility as circumstances evolve.

In this context, resilience is less about avoiding risk and more about managing it. Jersey’s role is to provide a stable point within that framework. Structures anchored in Jersey benefit from a jurisdiction unlikely to introduce volatility of its own, allowing advisers to focus on managing risks associated with underlying assets, jurisdictions, and family dynamics.

Regulatory alignment in a diverging landscape

While transparency and compliance standards continue to converge globally, their implementation remains uneven. Advisers are therefore balancing two competing pressures: meeting international regulatory expectations and ensuring structures remain practical across multiple jurisdictions.

Jersey’s approach - aligned with global standards yet proportionate in application - enables structures to meet regulatory requirements without introducing unnecessary complexity at the governance level.

Case study: aligning governance across jurisdictions

The client

A Saudi family owns a large trading group operating across the GCC and Europe. The family includes two wives, each with two children.

The challenge

Assets were held personally by the patriarch across the UK, US and Europe, with no formal succession framework in place. The objective was to introduce intergenerational planning while adhering to Shari’a inheritance principles and maintaining control over the operating business.

The solution

A Jersey structure was established comprising:

• a foundation acting as a Private Trust Foundation
• underlying Jersey law trusts aligned to Shari’a inheritance principles
• Jersey holding vehicles for investment and asset ownership

Each trust holds a proportion of the shares in the European trading business, alongside separate investment structures. The foundation enables continued family involvement in governance, while trustee decision-making remains centralised.

The outcome

The structure creates a single, coherent governance framework across jurisdictions, allowing:

• succession to follow Shari’a principles
• ongoing oversight of operating assets
• preservation of family wealth across generations

This approach avoided the need to relocate underlying assets while introducing a robust governance framework aligned with both family expectations and regulatory considerations.

Trusts and Shari’a: a practical perspective

A common misconception is that trusts are inherently incompatible with Shari’a due to their common law origins. In practice, Jersey trusts are frequently structured to operate in a fully Shari’a-compliant manner.

More broadly, the same framework can be adapted to follow Shari’a principles in full, apply conventional common law succession planning, or adopt a hybrid approach.

For example, on death, assets can be allocated into beneficiary “pots” in Shari’a shares but remain on trust, with guardrails (e.g., limits on early realisation) to help preserve family wealth. Where a settlor wants a different outcome for specific assets, that can also be built in through the drafting and governance arrangements. 

A more deliberate approach to structuring

For advisers, this places greater emphasis on early-stage design. It includes aligning legal, tax and fiduciary input from the outset, determining where control should sit, and ensuring governance frameworks can accommodate changes in residency, regulation and family dynamics.

Structures designed with these considerations in mind tend to remain effective, while those introduced retrospectively can bring unnecessary complexity, cost and risk.

Praxis: experience across Jersey and the GCC

Effective cross-border structuring increasingly depends on early, coordinated design. Where governance, control and succession are aligned from the outset, structures are far more likely to remain strong as circumstances evolve.

Praxis brings over 50 years of experience in Jersey supporting international families and their advisers, as well as a decade-long presence in the GCC. As the first trustee licensed by the ADGM Financial Services Regulatory Authority in 2016, Praxis supports consistent governance across jurisdictions, coordinated offshore and onshore administration, and structures aligned with both international standards and regional considerations.

Please contact Dan Toft or Darren Toudic to find out more.

A version of this article first appeared as a feature in ThoughtLeaders4 Middle East magazine issue 2.

PraxisIFM Trust Limited is regulated by the Jersey Financial Services Commission for the conduct of trust company business under the Financial Services (Jersey) Law 1998 (as amended), and by the Financial Service Regulatory Authority in ADGM to provide Trust Services (as a trustee of an express trust).

Please note that this article is intended to provide a general overview of the matters to which it relates. It is not intended as professional advice and should not be relied upon as such. Any engagement in respect of our professional services is subject to our standard terms and conditions of business and the provision of all necessary due diligence. © Praxis 2026