Marcus Pallot

Head of Dispute Resolution and Litigation, Jersey and Global Contentious Regulatory Team

Marcus’ practice covers three main areas: contentious regulatory; insolvency; and financial services litigation.

His experience includes having acted for the Jersey Financial Services Commission in the matter of JFSC v Black, but he now concentrates on acting for regulated entities involved in actual or threatened proceedings, including regulatory matters and investigations where the JFSC, or other regulators, are on the other side.  He successfully acted for a regulated trust company in defending an application by the JFSC that a series of unit trusts under their stewardship be placed into a court ordered liquidation. In addition, he is regarded as the lawyer of choice for the majority of the island's larger banking groups on regulatory issues.

In the insolvency arena, Marcus' reputation as a leading practitioner has been established on the back of a series of successful, innovative applications which have expanded the reach of Jersey's insolvency laws. In particular he is renowned for his ability to persuade the court to exercise its discretion to permit novel processes to be adopted as part of Jersey law so as best to serve the needs of his clients. Notably, he succeeded in persuading the Royal Court that it could use powers under the Just & Equitable jurisdiction to permit what was a Pre-pack Administration in circumstances where administration itself is not a remedy known to Jersey law.

Marcus leads the eGaming team in Jersey and has been advising clients since the inception of the eGaming industry. He is fully conversant with the various licensing and gambling laws and can provide company formation, licensing and regulatory advice as well as assisting on full migrations of existing businesses. Carey Olsen can also provide on-going legal support through its related practices.

The final significant area of Marcus' work is his financial services civil litigation practice. He has recently been involved in a hotly contested and long-running breach of trust matter involving catastrophic loss of trust fund monies where his regulated client's position was protected, the matter resolved at a fraction of the amounts claimed and settlement effected principally from insurance policies against a background where coverage was denied at the outset.  Notwithstanding his reputation as a commercial and pragmatic lawyer, when the time comes he is renowned as a punchy and aggressive advocate, who is passionate about his work and extremely hard working and diligent.

Marcus joined the firm in 2001, having previously practised as a Barrister in the Royal Navy. He was called to the English Bar at Middle Temple in 1997 and he was called to the Jersey Bar in 2004 and the BVI bar in 2015.