BERMUDA Trends and Developments Contributed by: John Wasty, Claire van Overdijk, Sam Riihiluoma, James Batten and Jordan Knight, Appleby
force on 10 October 2025) provide important benefits for aligning trust administration with family legacy and succession planning. Alongside the amendment to the trust legislation, Bermuda has enacted the Benefit Entities Act 2025, which provides an optional frame- work for companies, LLCs, and limited partnerships to formally embed public benefits into their governance and decision-making. This new type of business can be created or converted from existing entities to pur- sue both profit and positive social or environmental impacts. The Benefit Entities Act 2025 is expected to be implemented before the end of 2025. Compliance with the Personal Information Protection Act 2016 (PIPA) for trustees PIPA, Bermuda’s data protection legislation, applies to all organisations that use personal data in Bermuda. These three terms – organisations, use and personal information – are defined in PIPA. It came into force on 1 January 2025 and is Bermuda’s equivalent of the UK’s Data Protection Act 1998 and the EU’s General Data Protection Regulations (EU) 2016/679 (GDPR). In the context of trust structures, “organisations” may include individual trustees, private trust companies, regulated local trust companies, underlying holding companies and protectors, each of which must, for example, have a privacy officer. However, a common privacy officer may be used where more than one organisation is under common ownership or control. An important point to note about PIPA is that it is not possible to “contract out” of it, ie, for trustees to ask individuals about whom personal information may be held to waive their PIPA rights. Trustees may consider whether any trust terms limiting disclosure to benefi- ciaries are inconsistent with PIPA. Compliance with PIPA for trustees will typically involve, among other things: • appointing a privacy officer/considering whether someone from a service provider can be nomi- nated for this role; • formulating PIPA policies and procedures and considering the collection and use of personal information;
• considering the integrity and retention of personal information, ie, ensuring that information held is accurate and not kept for longer than can be justi- fied; • considering requests for disclosure, rectification, blocking, erasure and destruction of information pursuant to PIPA (the interaction of disclosure rights under PIPA with the quite limited disclosure rights under general trust law principles might prove challenging); • ensuring robust data security measures are in place; • considering contracts with service providers in terms of their responsibilities in relation to personal information, especially if they are an “overseas third party” subject to special provisions under PIPA; • taking special care of sensitive personal informa- tion, such as information on family life or health; and • taking appropriate action in the event of security breaches — this may involve reporting to the Priva- cy Commissioner and affected individuals (breach of PIPA is a serious matter, as it can be a criminal offence, so trustees must get to grips with these issues as they apply to individual trust structures). Case law update There are two important cases in Bermuda involv- ing the Privy Council. One case has been heard, with judgment pending. The other case is set to be heard in November. The case is referred to as the “ X Trusts ” case. Sev- eral trusts include provisions that require a protector’s consent for certain powers of the trustees. An issue emerged as to the correct interpretation of the con- sent powers, and whether, in exercising those powers: • the protector had to exercise an independent discretion as to the proposed exercise of power by the trustee, so that a protector might withhold con- sent even if the proposed exercise of power was one which a reasonable body of informed trustees was entitled to decide upon (the “wider role”); or • to satisfy themselves that the proposed exercise of power by the trustee was one which a reasonable
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