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Profile
Close family encounters help ensure law firm’s progress Continued from p20
hotel with a gym, pool and everything else, but more difficult for a boutique firm to be Band 1 or 5-star”, Isola reports proudly.
He riles at the suggestion that the transition to LLP might be to protect partners against risk. “We have never been sued, touch wood, we have not become an LLP because of that; in fact, our professional indemnity insurers have made a lot of money out of us without ever having to pay out on any claim.”
Strong advocate
But being a strong advocate of FinTech (Financial Technology) and development of ICOs (Initial Coin Offerings), with his firm organising Gibraltar’s first last year, he cautions: “I think there is misunderstanding about ICOs, which essentially are money raisers: I’m not even going to call them investments.
“You can participate in ICOs, where
had now, but I’m too cautious. I thought I was quite open to risk until doing a profile for a bank investment and asked how much of my accumulated wealth I was prepared to lose – 30%, ‘no’, 20%, ‘no’, 10%, ‘not really’.” He was classed “a very cautious investor, because I think it’s quite hard to earn money in the first place, and I’m more concerned about retaining it than growing it.”
Until this year, the only other Band 1 Gibraltar legal firm was Hassans, which was established by Sir Joshua Hassan in 1939, and features in much of the Isola history. “I think when Sir Joshua, [who served four terms as Gibraltar’s Chief Minister], and my great grandfather- he was Leader of the Opposition - started in politics, it was as much a social service – they did it all for the right reasons”.
But it was inevitable, Isola suggests that “at the time if you are Chief Minister (CM) of Gibraltar and Joshua Hassan was a practicing lawyer – don’t forget it’s changed now - it is not surprising that when people came here
they would be introduced to the CM and, therefore, to his law firm.”
“My father and Sir Joshua were politicians first, commercial lawyers second”, he notes, adding spiritedly: “The development of Isolas has been organic from when I came in, whereas other firms grew through mergers, although there’s nothing wrong with that.”
Isola was appointed in 2017 to the Gibraltar Financial Services Commission (GFSC) board – he’s already on the Gibraltar International Bank board – and says it is important that the GFSC Board has local people with local knowledge, but concedes: “Anyone dealing with the GFSC - lawyer, accountant or banker - has a prima facie conflict. Ideally, Commissioners would be people keeping up their knowledge, but no longer in practice, semi-retired, maybe, but there is the danger that they may no longer have relevant knowledge.”
He declares an interest whenever there is a potential conflict with his business interests,
adding: “The executive members of the FSC are extremely sensitive to conflict – I would say over-sensitive on some occasions – but it means we have a very strict policy on conflict.”
Keen on keep fit, skiing, paddle tennis and golf, Isola is only interested in politics, with a small ‘p’. He declares: “I think as a family, we are quite liberal, with a socialist bent. I certainly support the GSLP government at the moment, although I’ve supported the GSD at times previously.” He supports policies and individuals, preferring to split votes between people, rather than block vote.
He married Danish accountant Dorthe in 1993 when she was working as an account manager for Jyske Bank in Gibraltar and a year after officially becoming managing partner of the then Isola & Isola. “It’s very refreshing to be married to someone from a different culture. She brought a Danish outlook on life, very much concentrated on children and on holidays and having time for the family, which I was not good at, being in the heat of developing a law firm and Fiduciary as a business.”
Two of their four children are already destined to join the firm: Katrina (23) is doing a conversion to law from the theology degree she did at Exeter, and Thomas (21) is a third year law degree student at Durham University, where Emma (19) is studying economics, French and Arabic, whilst Alice (16) is working for her International Baccalaureate.
Still growing
Amongst the dynasty’s 5th generation, brother Albert Isola’s son, also called Albert, is training to be a solicitor in the UK, and will probably join other family members – partners Joseph (Joey) Garcia, his sister’s son, and Mark Isola QC, his cousin, whose son Nicholas is at ISOLAS as a trainee.
Isola’s firm is growing despite Brexit - “I don’t know an area that has not grown in this firm, why I couldn’t tell you and at times coping with the workload is difficult.” He’d rather Brexit didn’t happen and wishes the decision could be reversed, “because Gibraltar had positioned itself well as an EU finance centre.
“But having said that, we are entrepreneurial and we will overcome it. Of course, there may be pain to come with Brexit, but all I am saying is that we would have expected pain, and instead we have had growth,” Isola observes.
Peter Isola with his brothers, there will be some that fail and some that
Albert and Lawrence
succeed tremendously. It is obviously much safer investing in a FTSE 100 company and getting your secure return, relatively speaking. (He sits on the board of gaming giant, GVC plc, and “its value has gone up 100% in the time I’ve been there - not that I’ve impacted the result as a non-executive director.
“People should realise that ICOs come with a high-risk health warning, but having said that, some of these enterprises are the companies of the future,” Isola emphasises. We are a facilitator for ICO launches and we do our due diligence, but we are not judging what the money is being raised for. Gibraltar is looking at regulating the next stage, but ICOs are the future and have tremendous potential.”
On cryptocurrencies, Isola divulges: “I haven’t bought any Bitcoin – with the tremendous rise in value, obviously I wish I
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