Trustees and Fiduciaries (Cook Islands) Limited

Trustees & Fiduciaries is a licensed Cook Islands trustee company that is 100% locally owned and staffed. The firm’s owners have been involved in the Cook Islands offshore financial services industry since its inception, and its directors played a direct role in the development of Cook Islands asset protection legislation. The company holds a trustee license issued by the Cook Islands Financial Supervisory Commission under the Trustee Companies Act 2014.

Trustees & Fiduciaries occupies a distinct position among Cook Islands trustees. It is one of the few firms whose leadership participated in drafting the statutory framework that the entire industry operates under. That legislative involvement, combined with decades of trust administration and cross-border litigation experience, gives the firm an institutional depth that newer entrants have not yet had the opportunity to develop.

Ownership and Independence

Trustees & Fiduciaries is structured so that all directors, shareholders, management, and operations are resident and located in the Cook Islands. This is a deliberate structural choice that strengthens the firm’s position when trusts are challenged by foreign creditors.

Because the company has no foreign parent, no offshore shareholders, and no management located in jurisdictions where U.S. or other foreign courts exercise authority, creditors cannot use third-country enforcement mechanisms to pressure the trustee indirectly. Some Cook Islands trustees are subsidiaries of larger international groups with operations in jurisdictions that may be subject to foreign court orders. Trustees & Fiduciaries avoids this exposure entirely through its locally contained ownership structure.

This independence also means the firm is not subject to corporate directives from a foreign parent that might conflict with the trustee’s obligations under Cook Islands law during contested proceedings.

Services

Trustees & Fiduciaries provides trustee services for international asset protection trusts, Cook Islands LLCs, international companies, and foundations. The firm’s service offerings include standard trust formation and administration as well as several specialized capabilities that reflect its litigation and legislative background.

Cross-border litigation management. The firm’s directors have extensive experience managing multimillion-dollar cross-border litigation against trusts. This includes coordinating with local counsel, managing trust assets during active proceedings, implementing duress clause protocols, and making trustee decisions under creditor pressure. For clients whose trust may eventually face a determined creditor attack, the trustee’s litigation experience is directly relevant to the trust’s performance under challenge.

Professional protector services. Trustees & Fiduciaries offers independent protector appointments, drawing on its litigation experience to perform protector functions during contested proceedings. The firm’s depth of experience in trust litigation gives it a practical understanding of when and how a protector should act to preserve trust integrity — including removing domestic co-trustees, vetoing distributions that could create vulnerabilities, and restructuring trust governance in response to evolving litigation threats. The protector role and its significance are discussed further in the administration cluster.

Relationship property trusts. Trustees & Fiduciaries developed the Cook Islands Relationship Property Act and is the primary trustee offering relationship property trusts under that legislation. These are distinct structures from standard asset protection trusts, designed to allow couples to preserve designated trust assets in defined shares in the event of separation or divorce. The firm conducts seminars and educational programs on this topic through industry organizations including STEP.

Managed trustee company services. For foreign trustees who wish to establish a Cook Islands presence, Trustees & Fiduciaries provides managed trustee company services, drawing on over 50 years of combined experience in trustee company administration.

Leadership

The firm’s leadership includes professionals with decades of experience in Cook Islands trust law. Reuben Tylor, who has over 40 years of specialist expertise in asset protection and cross-border trust structuring, moved from legal practice in New Zealand to establish one of the first law firms in Rarotonga focused on international trust work. The firm’s senior trust officers include professionals with 20 to 30 years of experience in the Cook Islands financial services industry, including compliance, trust administration, and in-house legal counsel roles.

This concentration of long-tenured professionals with direct Cook Islands experience differentiates Trustees & Fiduciaries from trustees that rely on staff recruited from other jurisdictions or that operate through remote management from foreign offices.

Considerations

Trustees & Fiduciaries’ strengths are its legislative pedigree, litigation experience, local independence, and institutional depth. These qualities are most relevant for clients with significant assets, complex structures, or elevated litigation risk where the trustee’s willingness and capacity to defend the trust under sustained pressure is the primary concern.

The firm’s operational approach reflects its focus on complex, high-stakes trust administration rather than high-volume processing. Clients who prioritize modern digital interfaces, automated account access, or the lowest possible fee structure may find that newer entrants or larger international groups offer different operational advantages. The trade-off is that those firms typically lack Trustees & Fiduciaries’ direct legislative involvement and litigation track record.

As with any trustee selection, the right choice depends on the client’s specific circumstances, including the types of assets being transferred, the likely creditor profile, the complexity of the trust structure, and how much weight the client places on institutional history relative to operational convenience.

For guidance on evaluating Cook Islands trustees, see how to choose a Cook Islands trustee. For profiles of other licensed trustees, return to the Cook Islands trust companies overview. For comprehensive information about Cook Islands trust planning, see the Cook Islands trust overview.