Nathan Wells, instructed by Peter Bourke and Georgina Salt of Wilsons Solicitors LLP, acted for the successful Appellant in Ocorian Private Trustees (Jersey) Ltd v McGeoch, an appeal to the High Court from the Circuit Judge.

The Appellant is a Jersey Trust Company who sought possession of trust property (a farm in Hampshire) from the Respondent beneficiary. There had been earlier Article 51 proceedings before the Royal Court of Jersey – similar to a Category 2 Public Trustee v Cooper application – which resulted in the Royal Court blessing the equalisation programme proposed by the Appellant and another trustee. The equalisation programme related to the winding up of a number of family trusts (one of which owned the farm) and included, as an essential step, the sale of the farm. The Royal Court had blessed the taking of possession proceedings against the Respondent.

The Respondent sought to defend the English possession proceedings on the basis that she had a right not to be removed from the property. The Appellant applied to strike out the Defence for abuse of process.

HH Judge Matthews (sitting as a Judge of the High Court) allowed the appeal against the Circuit Judge’s dismissal of the strike-out application and went on to strike out the Defence (save for one specific point on which summary judgment was given) and to order possession of the property.

The Defence was held to give rise to two forms of abuse of process: (i) Henderson v Henderson abuse and (ii) collateral attack on the earlier decision of the Royal Court. With regard to Henderson abuse, the High Court held that there had been a serious breach of the Aldi guidelines as a result of the Respondent’s failure to raise her alleged right of irremovability with the Royal Court in the course of the Article 51 proceedings.

Among other matters, Judge Matthews confirmed (i) that the Aldi guidelines are potentially applicable in all kinds of litigation and are not confined to ‘complex commercial multi-party litigation’ and (ii) that the correct test for collateral attack abuse of process is whether the decision being sought in the second Court is inconsistent with the decision reached in earlier proceedings.

The Court of Appeal subsequently refused permission for the Respondent to bring a second appeal.

The transcript of HH Judge Matthews’ judgment can be accessed Ocorian Private Trustees (Jersey) Ltd v McGeoch [2026] EWHC 1575 (Ch)