Delroy is a Director and Founding Partner of Trott & Duncan. In March 2020, he was appointed Queen’s Counsel in England in recognition of a distinguished international career that began when he was called to the Bar of England and Wales in London in 1984. Delroy has been extensively involved in litigation arising out of company and commercial disputes, public law and constitutional law cases and human rights issues.
Delroy is highly regarded for his extensive public law experience, advising and appearing in the leading constitutional, judicial review and labour dispute cases both for and against the Bermuda Government, as well as governments in the Caribbean including BVI, Turks and Caicos Islands and Antigua.
Delroy has appeared in over 100 reported cases in the Supreme Court of Bermuda, the Court of Appeal of Bermuda, the Court of Appeal of the United Kingdom and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. Examples of significant cases include:
Commercial litigation
Jardine Strategic Holdings Ltd v Oasis Investments II Master Fund Ltd and others (No 2) (Bermuda) [2025] UKPC 34: the Board abolished the so-called “Shareholder Rule” in Bermuda and, by express direction, in England and Wales. Companies are now entitled to assert legal advice privilege against shareholders in litigation, save for the established exceptions (e.g., fraud, crime, or joint retainer). The decision brings Bermuda and England into line with other major common law jurisdictions, including Australia, and casts doubt on the continued application of the Shareholder Rule in the Cayman Islands.
Jardine Strategic Ltd v Oasis Investments II Master Fund Ltd and 80 others (Bermuda) [2025] UKPC 33: the Board provided authoritative guidance on the scope of shareholder appraisal rights under section 106 of the Bermuda Companies Act 1981 in the context of company amalgamations or mergers. The judgment is of particular significance for both corporate actors and investors, especially those employing merger arbitrage strategies, and brings Bermuda’s position into clear alignment with the approach taken in the Cayman Islands.
APS Holding Corporation v Sumitomo Parma UK Holdings Ltd [2025] SC (Bda) 16 civ: appeared for dissenter shareholders in s. 106 (fair value) proceedings seeking declarations in respect of company disclosure obligations including electronic messages on platforms such as WeChat and Signal.
SiriusPoint Ltd v Endurance Worldwide Insurance Ltd, Liberty Corporate Capital (Two) Limited and others [2024] Bda LR 27 – instructed for a public company operating as an insurance provider subject to investor threats claiming $362,000,000. The public company sought a more customized approach to disclosure in document-heavy complex commercial cases and specific discovery of metadata as a standardized part of the disclosure of electronic documents.
Griffin Line General Trading Ltd v Templar Capital Limited [2023] SC (Bda) 24 Civ – appeared for Templar Capital Limited in the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal in relation varying a worldwide freezing order, fortification of the undertaking in damages and security for costs.
Corbin Erisa Opportunity Fund Limited & ors v Argo Group International Holdings Inc [2024] SC (Bda) 69 Civ – represents the dissenting shareholders in s.106 (fair value) proceedings and resisted a stay of proceedings pending the outcome of the Privy Council proceedings in Jardine.
Constitutional and judicial review
Corporation of Hamilton v The Governor and The Attorney General [2022] CA (Bda) 6 Civ and [2023] CA (Bda) 1 Civ – appeared for the Governor and the Attorney General in the Court of Appeal and recently in the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.
Dr. Ewart Brown v The Director of Public Prosecutions, Deputy Governor and the Attorney General: – appeared for the former Premier of Bermuda, challenging the constitutionality of an oversight group comprised of the respondents directing a criminal investigation.
Commission of Inquiry into Historic Land Losses in Bermuda [2025] CA (Bda) 2 Civ; [2024] CA (Bda) 6 Civ and [2024] CA (Bda) 28 Civ – appeared for the Commission of Inquiry in the Court of Appeal on 4 judicial review applications.
Brewster v the Premier [2021] SC (Bda) 45 Civ and [2021] SC (Bda) 57 Civ – represented the Premier and Minister of Health against a constitutional challenge to the Covid-19 regulations. The legal issues included the proper role of expert witnesses, the correct test for an injunction on a constitutional motion and the proportionality test in constitutional motions.
Bermuda Prison Officers’ Association v Minister of National Security [2020] SC (Bda) Civ – represented the BPOA in the case involving the proper jurisdiction of the Labour Disputes Tribunal and challenging the removal of the prison officers’ contractual right to medical care and attention.
Tucker v Board of Education [2020] CA (Bda) 12 Civ –represented the Board of Education in a challenge to the Board’s recommendation for Commissioner of Education.
Tucker v Board of Education [2020] CA (Bda) 12 Civ –represented the Board of Education in a challenge to the Board’s recommendation for Commissioner of Education.
About Delroy
Delroy has been a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators since 1997 and sits on local and international arbitrations both as a sole arbitrator and as a member of a panel of arbitrators. He is certified as a trained mediator (Notre Dame Law School, Indiana, 2008), Social Justice Mediator (Social Justice Mediation Institute, Bermuda 2013) and Human Rights mediator. Delroy’s extensive human rights experience has resulted in him acting for the Bermuda Human Rights Commission in various cases and being regularly appointed as a Human Rights mediator.
In January 2016, Delroy was appointed as an Assistant Justice of the Supreme Court of Bermuda. Since the appointment Delroy has handed down judgments in reported commercial and constitutional cases including – Re Full Apex (Holdings) Limited [2020] Bda LR 19 Com, an application by shareholder for substitution of the petitioner in which the court considered whether a shareholder can use a contingent claim in proceedings to obtain substitution, and, Robinson and Wallington v Director of Public Prosecutions and AG [2019] Bda LR in which the court addressed the right of defendants in criminal proceedings to be tried within a reasonable time under section 6(1)of the Bermuda Constitution, the delay between charge and conclusion of retrial calculating the delay, relevance of complexity of the case and conduct of the defence and the judicial and administrative authorities.
Delroy is an Associate Member of Cloisters Chambers (an esteemed public law set where he completed pupillage and secured tenancy) and former President of the Bermuda Bar Association.
Delroy is a Contributor to Kawaley, Offshore Commercial Law in Bermuda (2nd Edition), specifically the chapter on the Enforcement of Judgments in Bermuda.
Employers’ Innovative Network, INC v Bridgeport Benefits, INC & Capital Security, Ltd
Employers’ Innovative Network, INC v Voluntary Benefit Specialists, LLC & Universal Risk Intermediaries, INC
Amalgamation Agreement Between JMH Investment Limited and JMH Bermuda Limited and Jardine Strategic Holdings Limited
Williams and another v Stableford and The Attorney General
Amalgamation Agreement Between JMH Investment Limited and JMH Bermuda Limited and Jardine Strategic Holdings Limited
Ewart Brown v DPP, AG and Deputy Governor
Corbin Erisa Opportunity Fund Limited & ors v Argo Group International Holdings
Piper and Davis v The Premier and Commission of Inquiry
Piper and others v The Premier and Commission of Inquiry
Employers’ Innovative Network, INC v Voluntary Benefit Specialists, LLC & Universal Risk Intermediaries, INC
CI2 Aviation Bermuda Limited v Permanent Arbitration Tribunal [2022] SC (Bda) 26 Civ
Active Equity Holdings Ltd & 4 Ors v The Registrar of Companies [2022] SC (Bda) 64 Civ (31 August 2022)
Corporation of Hamilton v Attorney General and Governor of Bermuda [2022] CA (Bda) Civ 6
We have a strong litigation department at all levels and a long history of doing both local and international work. We maintain a substantial local practice, while still earning a noticeable presence in international work for trust, insolvency and company law. We have a strong commercial practice, we are also the preeminent firm on the island for labour relations, constitutional law and judicial review. On the transactional side, the firm has a niche clientele for probate and conveyancing because we have an attentive and caring private client team. We are very much embedded in the community. People come to us because of our history; they remain with us because we value our clients.
My pupillage and tenancy at Cloisters had a profound influence on me. At the time, it was the one of the top ten sets of Chambers in London and David Turner-Samuels, who became Head of Chambers, had represented Bermudians charged in the BELCO riots in the 1960s. Cloisters was producing many of the leading public lawyers of the generation and I was privileged to work alongside them. Those experiences inspired me to take on a lot of public law cases when I came to Bermuda.
I was honoured to receive the appointment as Queen’s Counsel in a ceremony at Westminster Hall in London, but my overriding sentiment is one of deep gratitude for the people whose contributions and example helped to shape my personal and professional life trajectory. Taking silk in England is a rare designation, especially in Bermuda, and having Jerome Lynch, KC working with Trott & Duncan makes us the only firm on-island with two Queen’s Counsels on staff.