Emily Campbell TEP

Professional liability

Emily regularly advises claimants and defendants in relation to professional negligence claims relating to (i) occupational and personal pension schemes (ii) tax planning and drafting relating to trusts and estates and (iii) the administration of trusts and estates. The type of professional concerned includes accountants, actuaries, solicitors, barristers and benefit consultants.

Examples of recent work include:

• Barker v Baxendale-Walker [2016] EWHC 664 (Ch) (negligence claim in relation to tax advice regarding an employee benefit trust)
• Advising a professional indemnity insurer in relation to a claim against a legal adviser concerning the drafting of documents implementing a complex tax scheme.
• Advising the trustees of an occupational pension scheme in relation to a claim against an insurer for failure to renew death benefit cover.
• Advising the principal employer of an occupational pension scheme in respect of a claim against the scheme administrators for failure to document a reduction in future pensions accrual.

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Tax

Emily has had an expertise in personal taxation throughout her practice, having taken the Personal Taxation course as part of the BCL degree at Oxford University and sat with members of Chambers specialising in taxation during her pupillage. As an established practitioner, she has lectured in personal taxation at the law faculty in Oxford. She has written numerous articles on tax, including in Private Client Business, the British Tax Review and on the Chambers website. Emily is also a member of the Revenue Bar Association.

The main focus of her tax practice is advisory. In the field of private trusts and estates, she regularly advises on inheritance tax and capital gains tax planning together with other tax issues facing trustees such as income tax (including the pre-owned assets tax) and SDLT. Often this is in conjunction with drafting documentation, such as deeds of variation or deeds of appointment or advancement.

In the field of pensions, she advises frequently on tax issues arising in registered pension schemes, such as unauthorised payments, transitional protections further to the Finance Act 2004, lifetime allowance issues and applications to discharge the scheme sanction charge. Her expertise covers both occupational pension schemes and personal pension schemes (in particular, SIPPs). She also advises on unregistered pension schemes (EFRBS) and other employee benefit arrangements such as EBTs (including issues of disguised remuneration) and excepted group life insurance.

She is increasingly involved in tax litigation and disputes with HMRC, often involving pension schemes. Reported cases include:

• BAV-TMW-Globaler-Immobilien Spezialfonds v HMRC LTL 5/3/2019 (FTT) (lawfulness of discrimination by registered pension schemes legislation against German quasi- public service schemes); and
• Barker v Baxendale-Walker [2016] EWHC 664 (Ch) (negligence claim in relation to tax advice regarding an employee benefit trust).

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Trusts, probate and estates: contentious

Litigation

Emily has extensive experience of both contentious and non-contentious private client work, including:

• Contentious probate actions and claims under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975.
• The trust aspects of divorce. Emily has recently been involved in two very high-value divorce cases, both of which involved offshore trusts. She also advises in relation to various other property aspects of divorce, such as applications under section 37 of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 and resource arguments post-Prest.
• Disputes relating to the interpretation of trust documents and wills.
• Applications under the Variation of Trusts Act 1958, compromises, Re Beddoe applications, Re Yorke applications (estates of deceased Lloyd’s Names), applications pursuant to section 57 of the Trustee Act 1925 and other applications by trustees for directions.
• Applications to the Court of Protection and the Charity Commissioners.
• Disputes between beneficiaries and trustees and protectors, and actions for breach of trust.
• Hastings-Bass applications, in relation to which she has been involved as junior Counsel in a number of important cases, and rectification claims.
• Defending professionals (including solicitors and counsel) in claims relating to this area of practice.
• A hearing in the Cayman Court involving the partition of a large trust fund using the Cayman equivalent of section 57 of the Trustee Act 1925: MEP v Rothschild Trust Cayman Ltd (2009).

Advisory

Emily regularly advises trustees and private individuals in relation to wealth planning, including:

• Inheritance and capital gains tax planning, the taxation of offshore trusts, tax planning and the family home, reservation of benefit and pre-owned assets and business and agricultural property. Emily has advised on the application of the GAAR.
• Conflict of laws.
• Opinions pursuant to section 48 of the Administration of Justice Act 1985.
• Drafting trust documentation, wills, deeds of variation and documentation required to implement tax planning.

Reported cases

These include:

• AB v CD and others [2019] EWHC 2323, 2324 (Ch) (Court intervention in exercise of trustee powers where trustees could not agree).
• Barker v Baxendale-Walker [2016] EWHC 664 (Ch) (negligence claim in relation to tax advice regarding an employee benefit trust).
• Labrouche v Frey [2016] EWHC 268 (Ch) (unsuccessful claim against former trustees, who were represented by Emily as advocate, in relation to a  Liechtenstein Foundation, fees and retrocessions.
• Frey v Labrouche [2012] 1 WLR 3160 (procedural irregularity in considering strike out application).
• Baynes v Hedger & ors [2008] WTLR 1719 (Ch D); [2009] WTLR 749 (CA) (application under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 by alleged dependant).
• McClintock v Calderwood LTL 4/5/2005 (Ch D) (probate claim).
• Burrell v Burrell [2005] STC 569 (Ch D) (Hastings-Bass claim).
• Emily is also involved in numerous unreported cases heard in private.

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Trusts, probate and estates: non-contentious

Emily has been widely known as an expert in the private client field since the publication in her early practice of her book “Changing the Terms of Trusts”. Private client advice is inextricably linked to tax planning considerations, and she has very extensive experience of advising on all areas of personal taxation (see “Tax” section).

Emily advises beneficiaries, trustees and personal representatives. Her client base, details of which are of course confidential, includes many traditional family trusts (including those bound up with titles), trusts created in relation to successful family businesses and the wealth they generate and offshore trusts in connected with UK-based individuals and those with international connections (such as non-domiciliaries).

Emily is committed to providing cost-effective advice in respect of Wills and trusts, however large or small, size of a fund being no necessary indicator of the complexity of a problem, the importance of finding a solution to the client or the client’s need for experienced and reliable advice.

Emily is happy to advise in relation to trusts which are not governed by English law, giving her advice on the assumption that the governing law is materially the same as English law.

A few examples of areas in which Emily has extensive expertise are as follows:-

• The validity of the appointment of trustees;
• Perpetuities and accumulations;
• The scope of trustees’ dispositive powers and the extent to which they can be exercised without affecting the inheritance tax status of the trust;
• Self-dealing and conflicts of interest; and
• The interpretation of accruer provisions.

Emily has wide experience of acting in applications under the Variation of Trusts Act 1958 and under section 57 of the Trustee Act 1925, as well as applications to Court governed by Part 64 of the CPR (e.g. applications for directions in relation to problems which have arisen in the administration of a trust, Public Trustee v Cooper applications to bless decisions or applications to surrender a discretion, Beddoe applications and applications to administer a fund on a particular factual or legal footing).

Emily has a particular expertise in the drafting of trust documents, which is a technical and specialist language. Examples are deeds of appointment and advancement, deeds of variation or disclaimer in relation to Wills, the drafting of arrangements under the Variation of Trusts Act 1958 and arrangements in relation to Court-approved compromises of disputes.

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