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Families & Wealth

Our Families & Wealth team assists global U-/HNW families in global asset structuring and protection, estate and tax planning, family office advisory, residence-citizenship by investment.
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Summary

Chetcuti Cauchi's Families & Wealth team of lawyers and family office specialists have extensive experience helping some of the world's most accomplished and innovative international families in wealth structuring and asset protection, investment and co-investment structuring, tax planning, residence and citizenship planning, family office design, philanthropy, family law and all areas of law and taxation affecting families and their wealth.

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Our Families & Wealth Practice

The partners at Chetcuti Cauchi understand that high-net-worth and ultra-HNW families and their family businesses face several challenges in an dynamic global environment, increased regulations, reporting requirements and competition. Founders, family members, and their family office personnel must navigate issues such as asset protection, growth and diversification, tax compliance and tax optimisation, travel and mobility, succession planning and business continuity, contingency planning, security and cybersecurity, and intelligent giving. Our firm is specially equipped to support families in addressing these challenges, whether through in-house or outsourced solutions.

Malta Family Offices

Within Malta’s path to becoming the leading international family office hub, Malta has been lining up all key points that family office promoters, principals and beneficiaries look for in a destination for their global or regional family office.  While transitioning from an offshore centre in the 1990s to a compliant, transparent and self-sustaining financial centre within the European Union, Malta’s legal and regulatory framework for family offices has been carefully crafted and evolved to tick all the boxes for family offices. Learn more about our Family Office Advisory practice.

Family Wealth Structuring

A trust can serve as a flexible and efficient solution for the protection and management of family assets. Chetcuti Cauchi's wholly-owned and licensed trust company authorised by the Malta Financial Services  Authority and stands as one of the foremost Maltese Trust Companies. Our Trust Law team of lawyers, accountants, financial advisors and trust administrators bring to the table a strategic mix of skills and experience necessary for the running of a high-calibre trust operation while maintaining the levels of personalised services our clients have become used to expect.

Family Trusts

As trustees, our priority is to ensure utmost care in the administration of the property put in trust for the ultimate benefit of the trust’s beneficiaries, typically, future generations. We also help set up family investment and co-investment platforms and help implement listing and exit strategies.

While carrying out the necessary due diligence procedures and maintaining legal compliance throughout the life of the trust, we respect the client’s wishes in settling the trust property. We have years of experience in drafting trust instruments that best reflect a client’s needs and endeavour to make all the implications of settling a property in trust transparent to our clients. This includes any tax or accounting requirements that may arise in which our qualified accountants and our tax advisors have long-standing experience with the tax aspects of Maltese trusts.

Family Trusts

At an international level, Malta provides a family-friendly environment for business governance and wealth management, complimented by a legal framework and a professional infrastructure for the management of trusts and companies. The Trusts and Trustees Act and Malta's law on foundations provide flexible tools for asset protection and the running of family businesses on an international scale. Moreover, Malta's favourable taxation system includes the absence of withholding taxes on dividends, royalties and interests, as well as tax exemptions for dividend income and capital gains arising on the transfer of participating holdings. A similar exemption also applies to stamp duty otherwise applicable on the acquisition of shares in Maltese companies. 

Malta Foundations Law

With the enactment of Act XIII of 2007 as the law which regulates foundations in Malta, supplemented by the Voluntary Organisations Act of 2007, Malta’s foundations law is an all-encompassing legislative framework which deals with various aspects relevant to foundations. At Chetcuti Cauchi we are fully geared towards helping clients in the setting up of Malta foundations set up by public deed or will and endowment.

Find out more about Maltese Foundations Law

Family Estate Management

Our Estate Management Practice offers all-encompassing services to clients requiring fiduciary services, trust set-up and management and asset preservation vehicles. We have a wealth of expertise in offering excellent tax-planning, corporate and fiduciary services, specialising in implementing and administering corporate, trust and fiduciary structures and providing additional advice on private residence and relocation solutions to Malta.

Family Philanthropy

We guide families in defining the ways they can make a difference to the world and help the less fortunate. Drafting philanthropy policies is critical in understanding the philanthropic goals of the family and evolve these as the next generation grows and the family evolves. We assist our clients in the day-to-day operation of philanthropic work including setting clear parameters for charitable giving, ensuring tax-efficient giving and tax deductibility where possible and documenting and reporting such activities. Chetcuti Cauchi’s Philanthropy practice provides assistance on the registration, compliance and accounting processes of operating charitable foundations and voluntary organizations for families who want to an appropriate vehicle for chartable giving, to organise philanthropic activities and possibly also to raise funding from friends and family.

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Antoine is very professional and knows his field of expertise very well.

I  highly recommend the services of Chetcuti Cauchi. They assisted me as my  appointed Resident Agent with the MDIA, they fully understood my requirements  and also have a great reputation as a top law firm in Malta, making them an  ideal chioce. They delivered my project on scedule, which had a tight  deadline.

The professionalism and international collaboration of Chetcuti Cauchi’s team are a testament to their cohesive corporate culture. They are prompt in communication and consistently reliable, always delivering on their promises and never committing to tasks they cannot fulfil. This dependability gives us great peace of mind at the start of every project. In particular, we have been working with Magdalena Velkovska and Antoine Saliba Haig, who have been pivotal in building our trust in CC.

Not only do Chetcuti Cauchi have experience, they’re academically proficient as well. They offer a wide variety of different expertise.

Chetcuti Cauchi Advocates offers great ability and strength in handling and resolving difficult and complex matters.

Chetcuti Cauchi Advocates is a very strong team with a great understanding of complex matters. They enjoy a profound knowledge and expertise.

Chetcuti  Cauchi has been doing many different aspects of IP work for us for several  years, and I have always been more than satisfied with their work.    All the people at the firm with whome I have been in contact have been very  professional, efficient and quick in their efforts to assist us.    Dr Maria Chetcuti Cauchi has always kept me well informed about every angel  of the matters we have dealt with, extremely professional and I fully trust  her advice and suggestions. Another thing which I have appreciated is her  swift way of replying to our requests.I can highly recommend the firm  Chetcuti Cauchi to anybody who needs IP advice on Malta.

Dr Natasha Cachia’s experience in Financial services in Malta were invaluable to Porterpays team as we establish our business here in Malta. They have worked in a professional manner and were constantly supportive and open to understand new innovative ways in payments and provided us with a stellar advice.

Chetcuti Cauchi Advocates boasts an incredibly diverse and talented team. Everyone brings skills, knowledge and experience to the table, creating a dynamic and collaborative environment.

I  approached Chetcuti Cauchi with the objective of establishing a company in  order to provide public health information management services to  collaborators throughout the European Union.From my first interaction  with them through phone discussions and emails to ongoing communications and  a visit to their offices in Valletta, I have been extremely pleased with  their professionalism, competence, and timeliness.They have been very  attentive to the specific needs of my company’s collaborations and have  provided much-valued guidance and support both in establishing the company  and in its ongoing operations.Iam very satisfied with the work so  far, and look forward to more successful interactions in the future.

I have had the pleasure of having Chetcuti Cauchi as my lawyers for my Maltese Citizenship application and also for property acquisition in Malta. I am extremely satisfied with their professionalism and attention to detail at all times making them, in my experience, one of the best law firms I have ever dealt with anywhere. I am truly honoured to be their client and shall continue to remain so.

Dr. Chetcuti has always shown great wisdom and knowledge. He’s remarkably courteous and client-oriented.

My  wife and I have an association with Chetcuti Cauchi since 2009. They assisted  us with our original residence permit applications for Malta and since then  have taken care of our annual income tax submissions and PR sticker /  E-residence card renewals. They always handle our matters very efficiently  and professionally. The consultants that work with us are friendly, helpful  and very competent. They are familiar with the regulations and procedures in  the related government departments, and this makes the process run extremely  smoothly for us. We are very satisfied with the service we received from  Chetcuti Cauchi and will continue to maintain our relationship with them in  future. We can highly recommend them for any of the services that they offer.

Jean-Philippe was a key advisor to me on the general European and in particular Maltese related tax, legal, accounting and secretarial aspects of a rather complex corporate group structure. We were operating in an extremely dynamic situation, and I was most grateful for his patience and understanding when we had to scrap the last idea and start all over again. He is highly professional, responsive and is excellent at finding practical solutions to difficult situations, whatever the time of day or night. He also has an excellent relationship with his team, and the service provided by his firm is intelligent, joined up and seamless. He is good humoured and imminently likeable and I look forward to working with him again in the future.

Chetcuti Cauchi is a firm with very educated and knowledgeable lawyers and advisors.

Chetcuti  Cauchi has embraced a flexible and modern approach to hybrid working. Rather  than prescribe a set number of office days, the firm empowers employees to  exercise their judgement in how they manage their working schedule. So long  as underlying principles of providing an excellent client service and a  collaborative team environment are met, employees have a great degree of  freedom in how, and where, they work.

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