An Interview with Margot MacInnis

This month, as part of their Interview With feature, Lawyer Monthly speaks to Margot MacInnis, Managing Director of the Cayman Islands office of insolvency and corporate recovery firm, KRyS Global. Here, she discusses with us the firm, her work, the challenges she faces regularly and her favourite aspects of her work.

Please introduce yourself, your firm and your role.

KRyS Global has offices across 4 jurisdictions in the Caribbean – Cayman, Bahamas, BVI and Bermuda. KRyS Global provides corporate recovery, insolvency, forensic accounting and business advisory services. I have engagement responsibilities, am appointed as a liquidator, often in connection with Court supervised liquidations and to direct my teams on forensic reviews and asset tracing. The firm focuses on cross-border insolvency matters and asset tracing. Our engagements also span hedge funds, insurance, trusts, and often natural resource industries and financial services industries.

What is your favourite aspect of your work and why?

I love the challenge and the variety of insolvency. It is always different; there are always new and interesting developments in the industry, particularly within cross border cases. It is a demanding field, requires innovative thinking, flexibility and professionals must be able to act quickly to get results, that can be exciting and challenging. I also work with a great team of people that are young, energetic and motivated to get results.

What are the main cases you work on, and within which sectors?

We focus on asset tracing and recovery, provide forensic services and our engagements are spread across many industries, such as banking, insurance, trusts, natural resources and financial services. Cayman has over 9,500 registered hedge funds and a number of our cases are liquidations of hedge funds.

What are the key challenges and complexities to arise from this?

Predominantly, the biggest challenge comes from the underlying complexity of the case, and most often there is a cross-border element and the assets are rarely located in Cayman. Our engagements have us working in Europe, Asia, the US and Africa, and often navigating the differences in legal frameworks as well as language and cultural barriers.

How do you navigate the challenges and issues when you are dealing with cross border assignments?

We have taken joint appointments so that if the corporate structure is one where there are companies and assets in a number of jurisdictions, for example Cayman and Asia, we’ll work with an insolvency practitioner in Asia, so that we can use their knowledge and experience for the benefit of the client. The global insolvency community is ‘small’ in a sense; we come across a number of the professionals and experts over again which helps in building relationships with them. I have been fortunate to work with very experienced, talented and insightful professionals in this industry and appreciate their input and investment in our cases.

Are there any recent legislative changes that you are particularly interested in or concerned about?

The current insolvency legislation in the Cayman Islands was introduced in 2009 and therefore was brought in after the global financial crisis. While there may be updates to this legislation we do not expect to see any significant changes in the next year.

What has been your biggest achievement in your legal career so far?

Achieving a balance between my professional and personal life. There is a lot of travel in my role combined with the challenges of raising my family while achieving professional success. I am the first female court appointed liquidator in Cayman on a very high profile case and I feel that to achieve that, and maintain balance in all other areas of my life, is something to be proud of.