Greg joined Collas Crill in June 2023. He is a specialist in cross-border corporate and finance transactions with particular expertise in using the progressive corporate laws of the BVI to protect investment into emerging markets thereby promoting project viability.
Greg works with a broad spectrum of clients that includes financial institutions, public and private businesses, private equity funds, family offices, high-net-worth individuals and start-ups.
He collaborates with international clients on cross-border transactions spanning seed and series capital raising rounds, joint ventures, mergers and acquisitions (public and private), corporate reorganisations, IPOs and take privates. In addition to advising on market-leading transactions, he works to maximise investment and sustainability using the BVI Company and BVI Corporate Law to attract multinational investment and reduce corporate risk. Over the years, he has advised many multilateral lending agencies, development financial institutions and private equity firms on their emerging market and frontier market investments.
Greg has strong expertise in M&A, joint ventures, shareholding arrangements, public and private equity, group restructurings and secured financings, having advised on many of the BVI's ground-breaking (and record-breaking) transactions.
Background
Greg is one of the BVI’s most experienced transactional lawyers with more than 15 years' experience in BVI law and more than 20 years of cross-border corporate finance law experience.
He originally qualified as a lawyer in South Africa. He then moved to London and requalified as a solicitor of England and Wales where he practised as a banking and finance lawyer during his six-year tenure with Baker & McKenzie.
Greg relocated to the British Virgin Islands during 2006 and is listed as a recommended lawyer in Legal 500 2024.
Awards/directories
Ranked in Chambers since 2010
'Highly regarded' ranking in IFLR1000
Recognised as a 'key lawyer' in Legal 500
Top 10 Influential Corporate Finance and Investment Funds Lawyer in BVI 2023
Memberships
Law Society of England & Wales (non-practising)
BVI Bar Association
^ not a partner of Collas Crill LP in BVI
"I focus on what's relevant and useful to deliver pragmatic advice and solutions for my clients. This approach helps forge strong client relationships, which is something I value very highly."
Greg is an excellent hire, a lawyer who is genuinely interested in both the law and his clients’ commercial interests.'
Legal 500 2024
Greg Boyd has been a great help.
Legal 500
Ellie Crespi and Greg Boyd make a serious, experienced and switched-on team that easily rivals any of the bigger offshore firms.
Legal 500 2024
His deep experience, together with strong technical skills and good judgement, is constantly demonstrated in the practical solutions he provides.
Chambers and Partners 2021
Greg Boyd is extremely strong and business savvy; we enjoy working with him.
Legal 500
Expertise
The importance of managing risk across all types of banking and financial transactions has never been more apparent. International and multi-jurisdictional activity, particularly in new and emerging markets, is driving creativity in structuring and transactions which requires a team of lawyers who know how to get the optimal results from each deal.
Successfully navigating the modern global business environment, taking advantage of opportunities as they arise while avoiding legal and regulatory pitfalls, is a challenge for any entrepreneur, business or corporation, during all phases of the corporate life cycle.
Real estate continues to dominate as an asset class for many investors. We have a strong track record in financing commercial real estate acquisitions, mainly in New York and the UK and the London prime market. We act for some of the key lenders in this area. Our clients include banks, funds, alternative lenders, private equity houses, private investors, hotel consortiums and family offices. Locally, we have worked on the funding of some of the most prestigious buildings in our jurisdictions.
We work both lender and borrower side in funding the acquisition of aircraft, ships, containers, art and other high value assets and advise on finance and operating leases, sale and leaseback transactions, jurisdiction specific transactions such as JOLCOs and the securitisation of asset receivables.
When customers or clients do not pay on time, we provide timely and effective advice on recovering debts and enforcing judgments. We help businesses, service providers, lenders and borrowers – including banks, funds, directors, and insolvency practitioners – recover commercial debt swiftly and strategically.
Our services cover court proceedings, arrets, saisies, statutory demands, insolvency proceedings, désastre, realisation, dégrèvement, and enforcement of security interests. We conduct thorough security reviews and advise on pre-emptive measures, ensuring prompt, decisive action with discretion to minimise reputational risk.
We advise in relation to a broad range of legal issues involving crypto and digital assets:
Collective investment schemes including advising Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs) regarding licensing, regulation and the migration of structures between jurisdictions
Corporate structures (including foundations, decentralised autonomous organizations (DAOs) and token offering structures) together with associated services, development and access agreements
Private wealth structures including succession planning and dealing with digital assets as part of estate administration on death
Digital asset fraud and recovery on insolvency, including obtaining freezing injunctions in relation to crypto assets
Defence of directors, trustees, managers or other defendants facing civil, criminal or regulatory action as a result of dealings with digital assets
We advise Web3 and digital firms looking for regulatory guidance and support in drafting terms of service; token issuers and digital businesses looking to incorporate virtual assets; financial services firms considering adding a digital assets offering; investors establishing structures and appointing agents/trustees/custodians to invest in or hold digital assets; and high-net-worth individuals and family offices conducting succession planning for digital asset holdings.
We can also advise regulated corporate service providers to make informed decisions on the use of crypto platforms and crypto asset exchanges.
Good corporate governance and a sound understanding of directors duties is critical. Regardless of size, establishing a best practice approach should be fundamental to all boards.
The board of directors are responsible for ensuring the company achieves its objectives and the corporate governance framework they adhere to should underpin their accountability to the company and its members. We advise company boards at all stages in the corporate lifecycle, in solvent and insolvent scenarios.
We have also acted on some of the largest pieces of litigation brought against directors offshore.
Restructuring takes many forms, and we have broad experience in reshaping businesses to the changing needs and demands of the market. The team possesses a hands-on and comprehensive grasp of the intricate challenges that may emerge in restructuring scenarios, whether involving mergers, acquisitions, reorganisations or recapitalisation activities.
Offshore vehicles are used for a huge range of purposes either standing alone or as part of large multi-jurisdictional structures.
Our highly commercial team specialises in advising clients on the most effective uses of such vehicles and their on-going operation, including normal and cellular companies as well as foundations, unit trusts, limited partnerships, limited liability partnerships, segregated portfolio and restricted purpose companies.
We are able to advise what jurisdiction among the 'Big Four' that we advise on will best suit our client's needs and regularly advise on solvent restructuring by way of merger, consolidation, continuation or balance sheet optimisation as well as court based corporate procedures such as schemes and plans of arrangement.
With our mix of non-contentious and litigation restructuring specialists, Collas Crill offers the unique advantage of having being able to provide a team to seamlessly take a transaction from start to finish.
For financially distressed companies in need of restructuring and reorganisation, or for those where the opportunity to do so has passed or failed, we work to achieve the most beneficial outcome in these difficult situations.
At whatever stage we are engaged, our involvement will assist in identifying the ongoing risks facing a client and to enable that client to continue to identify and effectively manage deteriorating relationships with creditors, financiers, investors or other interested parties.
Our dispute resolution specialists collaborate seamlessly with our corporate advisory and banking teams across jurisdictions to advise multinational corporations, trust companies, banks, funds, insurers, governments and directors.
We provide a global perspective, working closely with our clients to ensure that they are best placed to respond to customer issues, fraud risks, rapidly changing market conditions and regulatory demands.
Thanks to the depth of our experience and the resources of our team, we've acted on some of the largest pieces of litigation brought against directors offshore.
We're well placed to deal with the 'bet the farm' proceedings that can occur in these type of disputes and have represented parties involved in intra-company disputes, including executive, non-executive and independent directors, majority and minority shareholders, companies and liquidators. We understand that shareholder disputes are often not black and white and our team finds innovative and commercial alternatives to those which the Court may offer – taking a collaborative approach with our clients to ensure that the right result is achieved.
Our investment practice is not limited to regulated investment funds. With private capital deployment a global trend we also advise clients on a range of unregulated and private structures. These include structures allowing new promoters to build a track record or investment clubs to access particular investments without incurring the time or financial cost of entering the regulatory regime.
In addition, we frequently work with our award winning private client team to provide investment fund like solutions for family offices or high-net-worth individuals. Our team's experience in this often overlooked area of the investment sector can help our clients manage regulation and plan their structures for future growth without unnecessary limitations.
We regularly act in relation to significant mergers and acquisitions activity in our jurisdictions, whether as lead counsel for strictly local matters or as part of an international team for multi-jurisdictional transactions.
In addition to the negotiation of transaction documents, we assist clients with disclosure and due diligence exercises as well as obtaining competition authority clearances. Our focus is a practical one; looking to allow clients the certainty to conclude a deal in the knowledge that their risk has been identified and mitigated appropriately.
We provide expert legal support on both local and cross border amalgamations of regulated and unregulated companies and work closely with our dispute resolution team on local schemes of arrangement.
Our experienced team will handle the due diligence process, from initial requests for information and documentation, transitioning to the review phase, making further requisitions as necessary and producing a comprehensive due diligence report setting out key issues and areas for risk mitigation.
In today's economic climate lawyers need to be more innovative and more efficient in navigating the increasing complexity of the regulatory environment.
Our clients choose us because of our ability to understand how to structure complex securities and how to execute complex capital raisings in challenging market conditions. We pride ourselves on being responsive and pragmatic, working closely with our clients and other advisers and drawing on our substantive securities and capital markets experience.
Our capital markets team have significant onshore as well as offshore experience, giving us an in-depth understanding of all aspects of security issues and capital markets transactions.
We advise on the structuring of securitisation vehicles, the promotion of securities and the full range of equity and debt capital markets transactions, including both public equity and debt offerings and mergers and acquisitions, including schemes or arrangement and reverse takeovers.
We can also provide listing sponsor and agent assistance for both The International Stock Exchange and the Cayman Islands Stock Exchange.
Economic substance legislation is in place in each of our offshore jurisdictions, requiring all businesses with entities in those jurisdictions to carefully consider whether they fall within scope and if so, what they need to do in order to ensure that they are in compliance with the relevant legislation. We advise businesses on their obligations in this area.
There's little doubt that for every challenge in the current market, an opportunity emerges. Having the right team to exploit these opportunities gives you a definite advantage. At Collas Crill we work with our clients to take advantage of opportunities at all stages in the investment lifecycle.
