Jessica Williams

Practice Areas

Litigation & Insolvency

Trusts & Private Client Litigation

Probate & Letters of Administration

Restructuring

Family Office

Trusts

Career

Jessica Williams is co-head of Litigation & Insolvency and Restructuring in the Cayman Islands. Her practice focuses on insolvency and restructuring, trust and estate litigation, shareholder disputes, and asset tracing and enforcement. Her clients include financial institutions, HNW individuals, insolvency practitioners, trustees, court appointed administrators, and other officeholders.

Before joining Harneys, Jessica spent four years at AO Hall (now Walkers) in Guernsey. Prior to that, she was a litigation lawyer at the Office of Fair Trading and was involved in the bank charges test case. She spent the first four years of her career as a commercial litigator in New Zealand.

Jessica is a member of ABI, INSOL, IWIRC, RISA, and STEP.

Work Highlights

Working closely with our corporate and funds teams to provide advice in distressed fund situations, including on redemptions, suspensions, director duties and wind downs.

Advising on a number of appraisal arbitrage valuation (s.238) proceedings, including In re Qunar Cayman Islands Ltd.

Advising the provisional liquidators in relation to the Cayman Islands restructuring of over US$1 billion in debts and liabilities of China Lumena New Materials Corp through schemes of arrangement in Hong Kong and the Cayman Islands.

Advising Kaisa Group Holdings Ltd in relation to the restructuring of US$2.5 billion of offshore debts. Kaisa Group is one of the largest property developers in China and its restructuring involved schemes of arrangement in the Cayman Islands and Hong Kong, and recognition under Chapter 15 of the US Bankruptcy Code.

Acting for plaintiffs in their international efforts to locate and enforce against dissipated assets including the obtaining of freezing and disclosure orders.

Acting for a court appointed administrator of the estate of a HNW individual who died intestate.

Acting for a trustee seeking declaratory relief and directions from the Grand Court concerning steps the trustee wished to take under the Re Beddoe jurisdiction.

Acting for the liquidations of a group of Cayman Islands companies in a complex, cross-border insolvency, which required proceedings (recognition and substantive) in multiple jurisdictions.