Luca Del Panta
Senior Associate
Bermuda
Luca del Panta joined Walkers' Bermuda office in 2024 as a Senior Associate in the Insolvency & Dispute Resolution Group. He specialises in trusts and estate disputes and capacity issues.
Luca acts on a wide range of contentious matters for corporate and individual trustees and other fiduciaries, beneficiaries and third parties, often involving complex trust and corporate structures and cross-border issues. He also acts for personal representatives and beneficiaries in estate disputes. Luca also has broad commercial litigation experience.
Luca has experience of disputes about the validity and administration of trusts (including directions applications, requests for information, and applications for the removal of trustees and protectors) as well as blessing applications in complex trust restructurings. He also has experience of a variety of will and probate disputes (including lack of capacity and undue influence, construction/rectification, inheritance provision and forced heirship claims). Luca has also acted in a number of commercial disputes with trust law aspects or allegations of fraud or breach of fiduciary duty.
Experience and recent work
Prior to joining Walkers, Luca worked in the Trust and Probate Litigation department at Stewarts in London.
Reported cases:
Trusts and estate disputes
Grand View Private Trust Co Ltd & Anor v Wen-Young Wong & Ors (Bermuda) [2022] UKPC 47 – Privy Council decision on the proper purpose rule as applied to trustee decisions
Wong v Grand View PTC Limited et al [2022] SC (Bda) 44 Com – judgment following a four-month trial of a $10+bn action relating to five Bermuda trusts involving issues of formal and substantive validity and conflict of laws
Tony Wang v Grand View PTC et al [2021] CA (Bda) 3 Civ – appeal decision on joint interest privilege
PTNZ v AS [2020] EWHC 3114 (Ch) – contentious trust restructuring with interim applications including a determination of the construction of the term “personal representative” in a civil law context and the scope of a protector’s powers
Commercial litigation
Libyan Investment Authority v Credit Suisse International & Ors [2021] EWHC 2684 (Comm) and Libyan Investment Authority v J.P. Morgan Markets Ltd & Ors [2019] EWHC 1452 (Comm) – two jurisdiction challenges in separate claims by a Libyan sovereign wealth fund against US and European financial institutions
Glenn v Watson & Ors [2018] EWHC 2016 (Ch) – judgment following a three-month trial of a £130m breach of fiduciary duty and fraudulent misrepresentation claim
Qualifications
Admitted in:
- England and Wales (2015)
Education:
- Legal Practice Course, BPP, London
- Graduate Diploma in Law, BPP, London
- BA Classics and Oriental Studies (Sanskrit), University of Oxford
Luca is a member of STEP (Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners) and of ConTrA (Contentious Trusts Association).
Currently listed in Private Client Global Elite [https://privateclientglobalelite.com/elites/luca-del-panta/]
Distinction in STEP Advanced Certificate in Cross-Border Estates and Excellence Award for one of the highest scores worldwide in 2019
"Luca del Panta is great and a very thorough, bright, hard-working litigator." "He is a delight to work with. He's very academic, writes incredibly well, is liked by clients and is well organised." (Chambers HNW, 2023)
Distinction in STEP Advanced Certificate in Cross-Border Estates and Excellence Award for one of the highest scores worldwide in 2019
"Luca del Panta is great and a very thorough, bright, hard-working litigator." "He is a delight to work with. He's very academic, writes incredibly well, is liked by clients and is well organised." (Chambers HNW, 2023)
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