Gemma Bellfield
Ogier, Camana Bay, Grand Cayman, Cayman IslandsGEMMA is a partner with Ogier in the Cayman Islands, where she specializes in insolvency, restructuring and distressed fund disputes. She also is an advisor and/or advocate in a range of cross-border insolvency and commercial disputes in the Financial Services Division of the Grand Court of the Cayman Islands, the Cayman Islands Court of Appeal and Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. Her particular focus is on winding up on the just and equitable ground, disputed insolvency petitions, restructuring applications, liquidator sanction applications, and distressed fund management and redemption disputes. She began her career as a solicitor in Australia before moving to the Cayman Islands in 2016, during which time she also spent three months in Hong Kong on secondment.
Gemma is a member of RISA Cayman and INSOL, and she was voted the inaugural RISA Next Gen Practitioner of the Year in 2021 in recognition of her contributions to the insolvency profession of the Cayman Islands. She also was a director and ultimately network chair of the Cayman Islands branch of IWIRC, which culminated in the network winning the Ryan Award for best network in 2022. She is a member of the 2022 class of the III NextGen Leadership Program, was appointed a member of the III NextGen Executive Committee in 2023, was named one of INSOL International’s “Future Forty” in 2022, and was co-chair of Offshore Day at the INSOL Conference in San Diego in 2024. Over the last two years, she has drafted and delivered by lecture part of the course program of the INSOL/ RISA Cayman Islands Introductory Certificate in Insolvency Law and INSOL Future Leaders course. She frequently authors articles and discusses developing aspects of offshore and cross-border insolvency and restructuring as a panelist at educational programs. For several years, she also has been a diversity, equity and inclusion leader for the firm’s 200+-person Cayman office, coordinating various annual diversity and inclusion initiatives.
Gemma mentors not only juniors within her team and the firm, but also a number of junior females within the local industry who do not have the benefit of having senior women in their organizations. She also has contributed to numerous sporting communities, playing netball, Gaelic football and touch football (representing the Cayman Islands at the U.S. Nationals). She volunteers as a Gaelic football referee, as an attorney member of the Cayman Islands Rugby Union Disciplinary Committee, as a judge at local literacy competitions for Cayman schoolchildren, and for the Cayman Islands Crisis Centre. She also has helped organize and emceed the annual IWIRC Trivia Night every year for the last six years, which has raised tens of thousands of dollars for worthy causes in the Cayman Islands.
Education
“[Gemma’s] growing ability to step back and advise her clients according to the broader commercial context of their dispute is what has really helped set her [apart] from her peers.”