Natasha Newell is a highly
experienced litigator and courtroom advocate with expertise in complex
commercial disputes, often involving contentious trusts, serious fraud, money
laundering, employment and regulatory matters. Natasha has also appeared in a
variety of criminal matters before the Guernsey courts. Called to the English
Bar in 2001 and the Guernsey Bar in 2018, Natasha practised for over a decade
as a barrister from Henderson Chambers in London, where she remains a door
tenant. She has also worked in the Guernsey litigation teams of two of the world’s
leading offshore law firms. She is a partner at Number 10 Advocates.
Natasha’s experience
encompasses claims by beneficiaries and other interested parties against
trustees and professional fiduciaries, including allegations of breach of trust
and fiduciary duty, gross negligence, inaccurate disclosure or reporting,
cross-border regulatory or tax consequences, failures of supervision, negligent
trust administration, investment mismanagement and substantial loss to trust
assets. She is well placed to investigate the trustee’s decision-making,
internal governance and record-keeping, identify the resulting loss and advise
on the pursuit of appropriate remedies.
Her broader trusts
practice includes Public Trustee and Cooper applications, Beddoe
relief, hostile beneficiary disputes and litigation involving
multi-jurisdictional trust, investment and corporate structures. Natasha has
acted for financial institutions, insurers, trustees, fiduciaries,
beneficiaries and high-net-worth individuals. She is equally comfortable
representing individual beneficiaries confronting well-resourced institutional
opponents.
As a director of a
leading global multi-family office, she advised wealthy families and wealth
creators on offshore trusts, intergenerational wealth, governance and
succession structures. She also served on the boards of corporate trustees and
corporate directors and worked closely with accounting, banking and investment
teams. This experience gives her first-hand insight into the governance and
administration of complex trust structures. Combined with her contentious
trusts expertise, this enables her to identify failures in decision-making,
supervision and investment oversight, and to pursue trustee-liability claims
with forensic focus and commercial realism.
Natasha acted for the
liquidators of Carlyle Capital Corporation in proceedings arising from the
collapse of the Guernsey fund. The claims concerned alleged breaches by
directors of fiduciary, statutory and common-law duties, including the duty to
exercise reasonable skill and care. The value of the claim, including interest,
approached US$2 billion by the conclusion of the six-month trial. Natasha was
involved at trial and in the subsequent Court of Appeal and Privy Council
proceedings.
Natasha also has
substantial regulatory and investigative experience. She advises on suspected
regulatory breaches, notifications to and visits by the Guernsey Financial
Services Commission, and regulatory investigations and enforcement proceedings.
During her career at the London Bar, she was instructed by, and spent
significant periods working in-house for, the Financial Services Authority, now
the Financial Conduct Authority.
Natasha provides advice
and representation across the full range of contentious and non-contentious
employment matters. Her work includes senior exits, discrimination claims,
workplace investigations, regulatory fitness and propriety, and employment related
personal injury claims. She acted for the successful applicant in Hitchins v
Babbe, Guernsey’s first equal-pay case, in which her client received the
maximum compensation available under the Sex Discrimination Ordinance.
Since joining Number 10
Advocates, Natasha has developed a broad criminal practice; she has appeared
before the Royal Court of Guernsey in cases involving sexual assault, other
offences of violence, drug importation and fraud by abuse of position.
Before qualifying as a
Guernsey Advocate, Natasha was repeatedly recognised as a “rising star” and
“leading junior” in the legal directories. The Legal 500 has described her as:
“an accomplished and fearless litigator. She quickly cuts to the core of an
issue and is exactly who you want fighting in your corner.”
Earlier in her career, Natasha
worked as a competition lawyer in Brussels and as a Judicial Assistant to the
Lord and Lady Justices of Appeal in London. She holds a First Class LLB from
the University of Essex, an LLM from the College of Europe in Bruges and a
postgraduate diploma in Human Rights from the University of Robert Schuman in
Strasbourg. Natasha obtained distinctions in both the STEP Advanced Certificate
in Trust Disputes and the STEP Advanced Certificate in UK Tax for International
Clients. She has previously been shortlisted for a Finance Monthly Law
Award in the category of Contentious Trusts and Probate Specialist. She is a
member of the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners, the Association of
Contentious Trust and Probate Specialists, the Chancery Bar Association and the
Employment Lawyers Association.
Natasha was an editor
of the Jersey and Guernsey Law Review between 2014 and 2020. She is the
former Chair of the Guernsey Housing Appeals Tribunal (and is currently a
Tribunal member), the Population and Employment Advisory Panel and was a
director of Guernsey Bereavement Service for five years until 2025. Natasha
also served for many years as Vice-Chair of the Guernsey Equality Working Group,
which campaigned for and was instrumental to the introduction of the
anti-discrimination Ordinance in Guernsey.
Natasha speaks English, French, Spanish, Hindi and Punjabi.
