Trustees and Fiduciaries (Cook Islands) Limited

Trustees & Fiduciaries is a licensed Cook Islands trustee company that is entirely locally owned and staffed. Its directors played a direct role in drafting the Cook Islands asset protection trust legislation that the entire industry now operates under. That legislative history, combined with decades of trust administration and cross-border litigation experience, distinguishes the company from trustees that entered the market after the statutes were already written.

Trustees & Fiduciaries holds a trustee license issued by the Cook Islands Financial Supervisory Commission under the Trustee Companies Act 2014. The company has been involved in Cook Islands offshore financial services since the jurisdiction’s inception as an asset protection center in the early 1980s.

Why Local Ownership Matters for Asset Protection

Trustees & Fiduciaries is structured so that all directors, shareholders, management, and operations are resident in the Cook Islands. The company has no foreign parent, no offshore shareholders, and no management in jurisdictions where U.S. or other foreign courts exercise authority.

This matters when a trust is under attack. Some Cook Islands trustees are subsidiaries of international groups with operations in countries that cooperate with U.S. court orders. A creditor pursuing a trust administered by one of those trustees could try to pressure the parent company through a jurisdiction that recognizes the foreign judgment. Trustees & Fiduciaries avoids that exposure entirely. A creditor has no third-country leverage point because there is no entity outside the Cook Islands to target.

Local independence also eliminates the risk that a foreign parent’s corporate directives could conflict with trustee obligations under Cook Islands law during contested proceedings. The trustee’s decisions during litigation are made in Rarotonga, under Cook Islands law, by people who live there.

Services

Trustees & Fiduciaries administers international asset protection trusts, Cook Islands LLCs, international companies, and foundations. Beyond standard trust formation and administration, several specialized capabilities reflect the company’s litigation and legislative background.

Cross-border litigation management. Trustees & Fiduciaries’ directors have managed 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. A trustee’s litigation experience directly affects how well a trust performs when a determined creditor attacks.

Independent protector services. Trustees & Fiduciaries accepts professional protector appointments, drawing on its litigation background to perform protector functions during contested proceedings. That experience includes removing domestic co-trustees, vetoing distributions that could create vulnerabilities, and restructuring trust governance in response to evolving litigation.

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 structures allow couples to preserve designated trust assets in defined shares if they separate or divorce—a distinct product from standard asset protection trusts.

Managed trustee company services. Foreign trustees who want to establish a Cook Islands presence can use Trustees & Fiduciaries for managed trustee company administration, drawing on over 50 years of combined operational experience.

Fees

Trustees & Fiduciaries publishes its trustee fees directly. Setup for an asset protection trust is US$3,520. Annual administration from year two onward is US$3,710. Fees are not based on total assets under management. Consulting work beyond standard administration is billed at US$400 per hour.

These are the trustee company’s fees only. They do not include legal fees for structuring the trust, which are separate and paid to the attorney who designs and documents the trust.

Leadership

Trustees & Fiduciaries is led by Reuben Tylor, who has over 40 years of specialist experience in asset protection and cross-border trust structuring. Tylor left legal practice in New Zealand to open one of Rarotonga’s first law firms focused on international trust work. Senior trust officers bring 20 to 30 years each in Cook Islands financial services, spanning compliance, trust administration, and in-house legal counsel.

The concentration of long-tenured professionals with direct Cook Islands experience is unusual among trustees in the jurisdiction. Several other licensed trustees staff their Cook Islands offices with professionals recruited from other jurisdictions or manage operations remotely from foreign offices.

Considerations

Trustees & Fiduciaries is strongest for anyone with substantial assets, complex structures, or elevated litigation risk—situations where the trustee’s willingness and capacity to defend a trust under sustained pressure is the primary concern. The legislative drafting history, litigation track record, and fully local ownership are most relevant when the trust may eventually face a creditor who does not settle easily.

The company’s approach reflects a focus on complex, high-stakes administration rather than high-volume processing. Anyone who prioritizes modern digital interfaces, automated account access, or the lowest fee structure may find that newer entrants or larger international groups offer different operational strengths. Those trustees typically lack Trustees & Fiduciaries’ direct legislative involvement and litigation track record.

Cook Islands trustee selection depends on matching the trustee’s strengths to the trust’s likely demands—litigation readiness, fee structure, technology, and operational style all factor into the decision.