'Bonjour' to the trust, say the French

The French legal system's hostility to the Anglo-Saxon trust structure is well documented. But that could be about to change. At the heart of the French legal system, in common with other civil law systems, is the concept that you cannot divide the ownership of property between legal and beneficial ownership. This brings the Anglo-Saxon trust structure into direct conflict with French law, and many practitioners in France will ignore the trust structure if they come across it. This also means that the trust structure has been treated with a certain degree of hostility in France. The tra...