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Ed Powles

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PA: Lauren Foster

Ed is extremely strong on non-domiciles' issues. He is easy and enjoyable to work with because he is very personable.

Chambers & Partners (HNW)

“Recognised by everyone as a brilliant lawyer”, Ed Powles advises on a range of private client and commercial trusts work.

Ed Powles is a partner in MTG’s Private Wealth team, advising on complex domestic and international private client, trust and tax matters.

He acts for UK and international individuals, trustees, private banks, financial institutions and law firms on succession planning, trust law, UK taxation, commercial trusts, philanthropy and art and cultural property. His work often involves technically complex trust, tax, or conflicts-of-law issues.

Ed also leads MTG’s Art and Cultural Property team and advises on structures, transactions and disputes involving high-value artwork and heritage assets.

Expertise

Private Wealth

Ed advises individuals, trustees and private banks on estate planning, Wills, lasting powers of attorney, probate, trust creation and administration, and complex family succession issues.

His work is often international, including advice on conflicts of law, cross-border estates, UK tax residence and domicile, and planning for individuals moving to the UK. He has particular experience throughout the Middle East and North America.
Recent experience includes:

  • Establishing dynastic trusts for Middle Eastern families.
  • Advising trustees on UK tax issues arising from beneficiaries relocating to the UK.
  • Advising on complex multi-jurisdictional estates.
  • Advising on CRS, FATCA and DAC6 issues.

Art and Cultural Property

Ed advises on art and heritage property matters, including structures to hold artwork, tax issues on acquisition and sale, title issues, conflicts of law and domestic loan and funding agreements.

He has led MTG’s Art and Cultural Property team since 2019 and is a contributor to the new edition of Professor Norman Palmer’s text on art loans.

Commercial Trusts

Ed advises financial institutions, law firms and institutional trustees on specialist commercial trust vehicles, including finance trusts, securitisations, decommissioning trusts, unit trusts and escrow trusts.

His work includes bespoke trust drafting, trustee duties and liabilities, and UK tax issues arising from commercial trust structures.

Philanthropy and Charities

Ed advises charities, trustees, donors and philanthropists on charity formation, governance, trustee duties, tax-efficient giving and issues such as tainted donations and conflicts of interest.

Tax Disclosures, Investigations and disputes

Ed advises on complex and sensitive tax investigations and disputes with HMRC, including technical tax matters arising from commercial transactions.

Ed is just an all-round excellent lawyer and person.

Chambers & Partners HNW

Ed Powles recommends

An Equal Music

Vikram Seth
Haunting.  He has the amazing gift of making you think that everything is going to be okay.  Even when it probably isn’t. So much happens, here. Understated and wonderful.

Jean de Florette

Marcel Pagnol
So: you read the book.  Then (it’s more or less impossible not to) you read its sequel, Manon des Sources. And then you have to read the two short and beautiful autobiographies which underpin everything you read before.  Humble, enduring stories of injustice, love and revenge in Marcel Pagnol’s beloved Provencal hills.  The films were so good, too.

A Time of Gifts

Patrick Leigh Fermor
One of the great books about travel.  And, like the best of them, it’s about so much more.  Although, now I think of it, “so much more” is what travel is really about.  It’s the first part of a journey from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople in the early 1930s. Witty, unique, brilliant.

For Whom the Bell Tolls

Ernest Hemingway
I hadn’t come across any writing like it.  It is amazing.  And then – there’s how it ends.  It’s set in the Spanish civil war, and it is lovely and tragic. It’s genuinely a coincidence that the title of this, like the title of my first recommendation, comes straight from John Donne. Everything he wrote is as good as it gets. But that is another story.

Carter Beats the Devil

Glen David Gould
Magic.

The Complete Sherlock Holmes

Arthur Conan Doyle
Back to London.  A shameless cheat on my part, as there are over sixty stories.  But then again, Rupert and Paul beat me to it with On the Black Hill and Any Human Heart, respectively, which otherwise would definitely have been on my list… I really wish I had read more new books during the course of 2020/2021. But the truth was, despite myself, I found myself coming back to these stories time and time and time again. It’s not an original thing to say, but I envy you if you haven’t read these books – you’re going to be able to read them for the very first time.

Recognition

Ed is recognised by Chambers High Net Worth and Legal 500 for private wealth work, and by Legal 500 for art and heritage property. He is also recognised by Best Lawyers and Who’s Who Legal.

Chambers & Partners

Chambers HNW, 2024

Legal 500

Legal 500, 2023

Others

Who's Who Legal, Private Client, 2023
Best Lawyers, 2024
What we think

Articles By Ed Powles

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Beyond Private Wealth: Trusts in a Commercial Setting – Some Key Issues

Square pegs in round holes – you like “TO-MAY-TO” and I like “TO-MAH-TO”

The UK Spring Statement: the impact for international clients

Navigating beyond the horizon: Considerations for the HNW family on coming to the UK

Extensive updates to the UK’s Trusts Registration Service

National Heritage in crisis: HMRC’s revised guidance