Governance

Mr Gerard St. Clair Farara, KC, is a native Virgin Islander with an extensive background in civil, insolvency, and commercial litigation, underpinning an illustrious career at the legal Bar and Bench and as a scholar and public speaker. Mr Farara KC was admitted to the BVI Bar in 1977 and later appointed Queen’s Counsel, now King’s Counsel, in 1996. Having worked at the public and private Bar in his early years as a Barrister-at-Law, Mr Farara established his own practice in 1985, which, after various evolutionary changes, became Farara Kerins and ultimately merged with the offshore law firm – Collas Crill, where Mr Farara KC served as equity and managing partner until he retired from the practice of law at the Bar at the end of 2019. Over his illustrious career Mr Farara has served on many occasions as an acting judge of the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court. As an acting judge of the Commercial Division in BVI, Mr. Farara has dealt with a wide range of matters involving commercial, company, and insolvency law, and trust issues, also authoring several judgments involving financial services matters. Further, Mr Farara has acted as a judge of the High Courts in St Lucia and Grenada and, more recently, of the Court of Appeal of the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court (ECSC) from 2020. Mr Farara KC has also served as chairman and member of several statutory bodies in the BVI over the course of his 47 years as a lawyer. Most notably, Mr. Farara was chairman of the 2005 Constitutional Review Commission in the BVI which recommendations led to the coming into force of the 2007 Constitution. He is a first-line speaker of choice on constitutional and related issues and has delivered several studied papers and lectures on topics such as constitutional advancement, self-determination, good governance, and on specific areas of law, including insolvency. Mr Farara’s appointment as Chairman of the BVI Financial Services Commission Board of Commissioners commenced on 1 August 2024.