User:Readpen/Sandbox

Introduction
Collas Day is a law firm in the Channel Islands. In common with all the larger law firms in the islands it provides services to the international finance community. Collas Day also advises on corporate and private client matters, transactions and disputes in the islands. It owns a trust company the Guernsey Trust Company which is managed independently of the law firm.

Unusually among Channel Islands law firms, Collas Day has not developed a fund administration or wider non-legal services arm. This avoids potential conflict of interest where it advises such businesses but has reduced the organisation's overall growth and size, relative to competitors.

Background
The firm’s roots go back into the C19th as a firm of Guernsey Advocates. It has been part of the legal establishment in Guernsey for many years. The current Bailiff and Deputy Bailiff of Guernsey were name partners of ""Collas Day & Rowland"". Both Geoffrey Rowland and Richard Collas took up their appointment to the Royal Court in 2005. 

In April 2007, the current partnership formed, continuing the name ""Collas Day"". Since then the firm has made a rapid transformation, moving decisively to become a managed firm as part of an open agenda of modernisation and growth. The firm opened a presence in London in July 2008 and in Jersey in ******* 2009.

Activity
Collas Day has been noted for a particularly strong corporate and commercial practice, with banking a speciality. That has led to the firm's involvement in almost all the significant commercial property transactions in Guernsey over recent years and in providing finance on a significant scale to the funds sector.

The firm stresses a commitment to innovation. In 2008 the firm was lead adviser on a transaction to allow what has been described as the world's first commercial-scale open-water tidal power generation project to go ahead, in the sea between Alderney and the French coast.

The firm has acted in most of the major disputes brought to the Royal Court in recent years. In 2008 it was appointed to act in the Adminstration of Landsbanki, the failed Icelandic bank. Separately, the firm advised the States of Guernsey on the rapid introduction of a Depositors' Protection Scheme, following the collapse of Landsbanki.

In January 2009, Advocate Christian Hay was given a favourable judgment in his defence of the Trustees of the Sark Island Hall against an action brought by the Barclay Brothers

Awards
In the 2009 edition of Chambers UK, the legal directory, Collas Day was one of a number of firms awarded Top Ranked status.

In February 2009, Collas Day was awarded the Institute of Directors and GTA University "Excellence in Training" award, in recognition of its commitment to development of staff. Previous winners of the award include Specsavers.