Profile description
Huw is an experienced advocate at all levels of court and tribunal. He is a leading Barrister, has presided over a public inquiry in Jersey and has worked overseas, including serving as the Attorney General of a British Overseas Territory.
Work undertaken:
- Huw graduated from university with a first-class degree in tax law. He spent 9 years dealing with tax-related matters when he was working in Jersey and another three years when he was working in Bermuda. He is well-placed to advise and represent clients on UK tax generally, but particularly Council Tax, Capital Gains Tax, SDLT and Inheritance Tax. Huw deals with disputes involving HMRC.
- A range of business and commercial disputes including, breach of contract claims, negligence, company law (including shareholders’ interests and disputes), business rates, financial services law, including disputes over pensions and regulation (both onshore and offshore), mortgages, bankruptcy and insolvency (both corporate and personal) and costs (including detailed costs assessments).
- Complex chancery, trusts, wills, contested probate and Inheritance Act claims, Court of Protection (Capacity declarations, deprivation of liberty, appointment and removal of deputies, and dealing with applications as to the validity of LPAs or EPAs).
- The full range of residential and commercial property law including property-related injunctions, landlord and tenant disputes, possession, leashold agreements, adverse possession, unlawful eviction, boundaries and easements, disrepair, dilapidations, council tax and business rates disputes and service charges.
- Planning, highways, environmental, local government, transport and works, compulsory purchase and compensation, parliamentary law, and judicial review in these fields. Huw appears at public inquiries, hearings and examinations and in the High Court acting for applicants, appellants, local authorities, statutory undertakers and third parties. Huw also deals with planning enforcement proceedings in the criminal courts.
- Public law (including local authority law) and Judicial Review, including Human Rights in a wide range of areas of law including actions against the police and public authorities, international law, inquests, mental health and public and administrative law.
- Criminal and quasi-criminal proceedings in the Crown and Magistrates' Courts, including defending clients faced with serious criminal charges (including fraud), local authority regulatory prosecutions (including planning enforcement, , business rateslocal authority prosecutions and HMRC investigations) and the full range of motoring offences (including speeding, driving under the influence and dangerous driving). Huw has extensive experience of running exceptional hardship arguments on behalf of his clients. Huw is frequently instructed to advise and represent clients in relation to licensing matters, including Taxi licence appeals in the Magistrates' Court. Huw also accepts instructions to deal with Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA) proceedings, cash forfeiture and DBS appeals.
I have specialised in contentious and non-contentious Chancery matters for over 30 years, alongside my other main specialism of public law. Chancery matters include the law of trusts, wills, probate, land, companies, bankruptcy, partnerships and a host of other related matters. In particular, trust law and the law of wills and probate have very considerable areas of overlap, and I have drafted hundreds, if not thousands, of wills and trust deeds in that time as well as advising on nearly every conceivable problem encountered in putting wills and trust deeds into practice. I also have considerable experience of advising on potentially contested probate matters and appearing in court in such cases; on average, I am engaged on 5 or 6 of these each month.
After working as a Magistrates' Clerk for 5 years, Huw joined the Treasury Solicitor's Department and spent 9 years handling a variety of government legal work, inlcuding judicial review, specialist prosecutions, Admiralty law, and regulatory practice. He then joined the finance industry in Jersey to establish the compliance/AML regime for one of the Island's large Trust Companies (and acted as in-house counsel). He then worked in funds and investment compliance and as a general business and compliance consultant.
Following a short stint in a local authority handling employment and freedom of information issues as well as more general matters, Huw moved to Bermuda, where he was Crown Counsel/Acting Deputy Solicitor-General. While there, he travelled extensively as a member of the negotiating team seeking Tax Information Exchange Agreements and was a member of the Island's delegation to the OECD Peer Review Group on exchange of information.
He also acted as an assessor for the OECD examining the effectiveness of TIEA mechanisms. He then became Attorney General of the Turks and Caicos Islands, having responsibility for advising the Government of the Islands on all legal matters, including the aftermath of the 2009 Auld Commission of Inquiry, planning and development, land issues and the full range of government activity, and for prosecuting offences.
In working with clients, Huw prefers to get involved at an early stage to ensure that any negotiation or dispute is managed to best advantage through the courts or if appropriate, mediation or ADR. He is bilingual in Welsh and English and has experience of conducting proceedings in Welsh. He also has some knowledge of French, German, Italian and Russian.
Huw Shepheard has appeared in Magistrates and Crown Court on variety of Criminal Matters
