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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
An island where 12 thousand people live is in practice stronger than the courts of the largest countries in the world.
Nevis. Part of Saint Kitts and Nevis, the Caribbean. In 1994 the Nevis International Exempt Trust Ordinance, abbreviated NIETO, was enacted here, and on 1 July 2015 it took effect with amendments that made it even tougher. Over thirty years private creditors have almost never won cases here against local trusts.
First protection. Foreign court judgments are not recognized in Nevis. A creditor may win a case in the U.S., in London, or in Kyiv, but here they have to start all over again in the local court under local rules.
The second protection is tougher. Before filing a lawsuit against a trust, the creditor must post a bond of 100 thousand dollars. If they lose, the bond goes toward covering the other party’s costs. Most stop there.
The third is the most interesting. In 1571 Queen Elizabeth I signed a statute against sham transfers of property: a debtor transfers an estate to a relative so the creditor is left with nothing. Over four and a half centuries this statute became the basis for almost all laws used today to challenge transfers of assets into trusts. In Nevis it does not apply. The limitation period to challenge is short, one or two years depending on when the claim arose. After that, an asset in a trust is virtually untouchable.
How it’s arranged. The classic setup consists of two parts. A NIETO trust with a licensed trustee in Nevis. And a separate company, a Nevis LLC, whose shares are owned by the trust. The actual assets are held by the LLC: bank accounts, securities portfolios, business shares, cryptocurrency. Accounts are not opened in your personal name. The trustee controls them, and you remain the beneficiary.
Now about what trust sellers usually keep quiet about.
The structure is built in advance, when there are no claims yet. Transferring assets into a trust after a lawsuit, debt, or criminal case has arisen does not protect the money but gives the creditor ready-made evidence. In many countries that is already a separate crime.
The island protects the asset, not the owner. American courts have repeatedly jailed owners of offshore trusts for contempt of court and held them for years: the money is inaccessible, but the person is available.
A trust does not save you from criminal confiscation, sanctions, or your own country’s tax claims. CRS reporting has not been abolished, and your country’s tax authority will learn about the trust.
And the most common mistake: a formal trust that the owner actually controls himself. A court will tear such a construct apart in a few hearings, because it sees not a trust but the same owner with a new sign.
Nevis sells not a hiding place but time and distance. Whoever goes there already with a problem buys only an expensive ticket to the same courtroom.
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