Trevor Clarke (lawyer)

Sir Trevor Charles Clarke KBE (born 1942) is a Cook Islands lawyer, businessman, and public servant. He is known as the "father of the Cook Islands tax haven".^[1]

Clarke was born in 1942 in New Zealand, and moved to the Cook Islands in 1966.^[2] He worked as assistant advocate general and later advocate general from 1966 to 1978.^[2] In 1998, he became majority shareholder and chief executive of the Cook Islands Trading Corporation.^[2] He is also a director of Island Hotels Limited. He has previously served as president of the Cook Islands Law Society and the Cook Islands Chamber of Commerce.^[2]

Clarke was a key figure in the establishment of the Cook Islands as a tax haven in the 1980s,^[1][3] founding the Cook Islands Trust Corporation in 1981,^[4] and later becoming a co-founder of the European Pacific Group,^[5] the company at the centre of the Winebox Inquiry in New Zealand. During the inquiry he worked as international financial advisor to Cook Islands prime minister Geoffrey Henry,^[6] and he was later appointed chair of the Financial Supervisory Commission, responsible for overseeing the offshore finance industry.^[7] He stepped down in 2010.^[8] He was named as a tax haven client in the Offshore Leaks database.^[1][9]

Clarke was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire, for services to business and tourism, in the 2025 King's Birthday Honours.^[2]