Caribbean legal services to financial sector expanded

October 09, 2010 8:50 AM

Law firm VanEps Kunneman VanDoorne is further expanding. The team focused on financial services has been reinforced recently by lawyer Sabine Altena, specialist in investment organizations, other financial service providers, and supervisory regulations.

According to its own statement, the firm has been the market leader in this field for years, and notices that this market is picking up because of the constitutional and economic developments, such as the arrival of the Dutch Caribbean Securities Exchange (DCSX). Partner Focco Lunsingh Scheurleer leads the specialized team of lawyers focused on this sector; a sector very important to the Dutch Caribbean.

In The Netherlands, Altena worked with De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek for ten years as a junior civil law notary. In 2008 she was sworn in as lawyer-trainee before the Court of Justice of the Netherlands Antilles. Since then, she has worked as a lawyer in Curacao. Altena is widely educated in corporate law and from that starting point has specialized in setup of, restructuring of, and advice to investment organizations and advice to other financial organizations such as banks concerning inter alia supervisory regulations.

Lunsingh-Scheurleer: “Financial services are a field that is undergoing a huge development with regard to regulations. For our clients it means that they increasingly have to seek external advice from specialists; they cannot keep up with it anymore themselves.” In addition, it becomes even more complicated with the changes in the political relations. “Parties get to face various supervisory authorities within a geographic area that is quite small. Look at Curacao and Bonaire: presently for a short period of time still the same regulations and the same supervisory authorities, soon this will all be different.”

“In addition, the requirements of investors and customers of financial organizations increasingly become higher. This is only a selection from the challenges legal advisors in financial services face here. We are prepared and equipped for it with our team that has now been expanded with Sabine Altena. In this manner we can continue to give our clients in this sector the legal advice they need in this changing environment.”

Specialist legal assistance
Since the seventies of the previous century, VanEps Kunneman VanDoorne has had close ties with the financial sector operating both locally and internationally. Banks, insurers, and trust offices together are the largest client group of the largest and oldest law firm of the region. Within this group, the firm supervises (project) financing and takeovers and advises on regulations specifically applying to these clients. In addition, the firm regularly assists foreign financial organizations in setup of branches on the islands. Together with other players in financial services on the islands, the “financial services & industry” team of VanEps Kunneman VanDoorne develops (new) financial products and supervises legislation projects. With the expertise of this team, the firm provides the correct, specialist, legal assistance necessary for the complicated disputes and procedures that clients in this sector deal with.

7 October 2010