history of appleby
Appleby’s latest office opening sees it venture further into China with an office opening in Shanghai in April 2012, offering a full range of fiduciary and administration service to clients in mainland China and internationally. This has resulted in a combined enterprise of c200 lawyers and over 500 employees, including accountants, trust and corporate administrators as well as business services and support staff.
Appleby today is a fully integrated organisation, based in eight significant offshore financial centres and with offices in four major international financial centres.
The firm of Appleby has its origins in a number of jurisdictions. The original Appleby practised in Bermuda and was established by Major Reginald Appleby, who commenced practice in the late 1890s.
In the same decade the law firm Bailhache & Bailhache was formed by brothers; Bois & Bois was formed by father and son in Jersey; and Dickinson Cruickshank was formed by William Dickinson and James Cruickshank in the Isle of Man. Each of these four practices was entirely local and focused on the local community and its need for legal services.
In Bermuda, Major Appleby was joined in 1938 by Dudley Spurling to form Appleby & Spurling which, in 1949, became Appleby Spurling & Kempe when William Kempe joined the practice following his service in the Second World War.
After the War, following the death of Major Appleby, the then Dudley Spurling (later Sir Dudley) and William Kempe joined lawyers from the only other large Bermuda firm and representatives of Bermuda’s major banks and undertook a sustained programme to market and develop Bermuda as an international business centre.
Jointly they forged a complete transformation in Bermuda’s business environment and created an international business community from the business they brought to the jurisdiction.
In 1945, Clifton Hunter began practising law in Bodden Town and in 1965 formed the firm of Hunter & Hunter with his son Arthur Hunter. That firm (the first law firm in the jurisdiction) grew steadily and was instrumental, alongside other Cayman firms, in the development and marketing of the financial services industry in the Cayman Islands and the creation of the Cayman Islands as a leading international financial centre.
In 1950, Perrier Labesse was formed in Jersey by Jacque Perrier and Jacque Labesse and, under the leadership of Jacque Labesse, working with other Jersey firms, began to promote Jersey as an international business centre. In 1994, Perrier Labesse merged with Bois & Bois to become Bois Labesse. They, in 1984, merged with Bailhache & Bailhache to become Bailhache Labesse, which continued its local and international practice.
In the Isle of Man, Dickinson Cruickshank began, in the 1970s under the leadership of Martin Moore, a sustained drive to develop the island as a significant offshore financial centre, developing a strong international practice alongside its local practice. In 1999, the firm merged with Morris Maddrell and continued its leading role, promoting the island and developing its reputation as a significant offshore centre.
In 1983, Appleby Spurling & Kempe established its first external office, a fiduciary company in Guernsey. In 1990, it established a Hong Kong office which was followed, in 2000, by a London office. At this point, but for a London office for the Cayman firm, the other constituent parts of Appleby were otherwise located only in their home jurisdictions.
In 2004, Appleby Spurling & Kempe, in pursuit of the goal of creating a leading global offshore firm, combined with Hunter & Hunter in the Cayman Islands to become Appleby Spurling Hunter. After establishing an office in the British Virgin Islands in 2005, it combined in 2006 with Bailhache Labesse to become Appleby Hunter Bailhache and then just Appleby.
After establishing offices in Mauritius (2007), Zurich (2008) and Seychelles (2009) Appleby combined with Dickinson Cruickshank to enter the Isle of Man in 2009, before opening an office to provide full legal services in Guernsey in 2010. Appleby’s latest office opening sees it venture further into China with an office opening in Shanghai in April 2012, offering a full range of fiduciary and administration service to clients in mainland China and internationally. This has resulted in a combined enterprise of c200 lawyers and over 500 employees, including accountants, trust and corporate administrators as well as business services and support staff.
Appleby today is a fully integrated organisation, based in eight significant offshore financial centres and with offices in four major international financial centres. It has a profile, in terms of the range of jurisdictions and the services that it is able to supply, unequalled by any other offshore law firm. Appleby is engaged with governments, regulatory bodies and industry representative bodies, as well as professional bodies and associations, in all our offshore financial centres. In particular Appleby participates in discussions on law and regulatory reform, the development of new products and responding to the challenges faced by each of those financial centres in an ever-changing international business environment.
Appleby Partners have been members of the elected legislatures, and ministers in governments in a number of our offshore financial centres. Members of the firm have gone on not only to political office but also in a number of centres (Bermuda, Jersey, the Isle of Man and Cayman) to senior judicial office.
Appleby represents combined ingenuity and talent taken from all of the most significant international offshore financial centres, and is focused on the development of new products and the provision of effective service to its many international clients.