Law sustains trust in fiduciaries not primarily by ordering redress of losses caused by a falling below fiduciary standards, but rather by requiring that the fiduciary be induced to act as if those standards were met. Wherever possible, the fiduciary is estopped from acting in reliance on the breach, and instead is asked to cure the breach by positive performance of duty. As a fiduciary, you do not keep the illegal profit and proffer compensation for any ensuing loss; rather, you hold the profit for the beneficiary as you always should have done, with loss measures calculated to level any shortfall. This "as if" trusting, enforced by law, solves the conundrum that complete trust properly requires no enforcement, but is self-enforcing, or better, self-fulfilling. This thesis is explored and justified through an examination of the history of accountability and allied modern doctrines controlling fiduciaries who breach their trust.

ISBN: 0006-8047

The so-called rule in Re Hastings-Bass has developed rapidly in the courts in recent years, but the true basis for the rule has not yet been properly explored. This article seeks to demonstrate that whilst the application of the rule in the courts may well have gone too far, it does have a legitimate foundation in some of the core principles of English trust law. Once its doctrinal nature is understood, the worst excesses of the rule can be curbed in a manner which is both pragmatic and principled. This article was cited by Lloyd LJ in the Court of Appeal in Pitt v Holt [2011] EWCA Civ 197 at [27].

The structure of trust duties yielding a duty to invest with due care derives from the interaction of the power to manage trust assets as a fiduciary owner with a duty to do so with prudence and diligence. In earlier equity mediocre or failed investments were chargeable to trustees only where shown to involve wilful default, which meant choice of investments outside the range or risk profile of those approved by the law or expressly licensed by the settlor or beneficiary. Lord Eldon in the early nineteenth century entrenched the view that only assets with indestructible capital -- for trust funds, gilts and mortgages on a wide safety margin, and in the case of trusts of realty, further land purchase -- were fit targets for trust investment without special authorisation. With more sophisticated capital markets developing in the nineteenth century, parties regularly set up far wider trust powers of investment, and the legal standard shifted towards enforcing prudent investment processes rather than safe results, using a benchmark of common practice to fix the requisite standard of care. American law from the late 1970s shifted to a new default position mandating portfolio investment, once it had become clear that the great majority of professionally managed trusts typically authorised entry into the profitable if volatile stock market; Australian and English law and practice eventually followed. Meanwhile, government policy favouring funded welfare, as opposed to the pre- and post-war fiscal transfer and national insurance systems, led to massive growth of pension capital under trust management. Statutory and curial reforms allowed pension trustees, and then all trustees, to invest unrestrictedly in all asset classes as plenary owners including portfolio stock investment, provided that certain undemanding standards of care and propriety were met. Portfolio investment by trustees was designed to win the 'equity risk premium' for beneficiaries while avoiding the volatility of the capital markets, through bundling into mutual funds permitting index sampling of wide markets and hedging and risk-correlation of equities and bonds. The recent sharp fall in share values allied to the credit crunch and financial banking crisis starting in late 2007 have tested the portfolio theory to destruction. Whether the macroeconomic benefits of market allocation of pension trust capital through unrestricted private choice has delivered sufficient stable welfare to enough individuals is a question the law may be ill equipped to answer. But trust law does have resources to detect individual and collective pathologies in investment conduct and set standards that can direct parties into less destructive paths.

ISBN: 1833-1237

An investment bank advising a client in a takeover bid may simultaneously engage in trading in the target company, and this carries a risk of driving up the target price. If, however, the bank forbears to trade, the market may take this as a confirmation that a takeover is being planned by the advisory wing of the bank, again affecting the target price. In ASIC v Citigroup, the bank had excluded all fiduciary duties towards its client, and so claimed there was no conflict of interest in the bank's proprietary trading in the target company ahead of the takeover operation. ASIC argued that in the run-up to execution of the retainer the bank had a preliminary fiduciary duty to seek fully informed consent to the broad exclusion of fiduciary duties, such that the client understood the risk that the bank might trade or otherwise act against the client's interests. The Federal Court ruled that formal consent sufficed where the parties were well-advised business actors, or alternatively that commercial actors implicitly consent to such risks. The decision identifies - but does not solve - the pervasive problem of conflicts of interest generated by the integrated investment banking model.

ISBN: 1833-1237

English trust law is increasingly emulating contract. The relationship of trustee to beneficiaries is now modelled as a consensual relationship created by agreement rather than custody; and governed by standards and duties of care with tort-like features as opposed to traditional fiduciary controls. This movement, which has considerable support in the appellate judiciary, is accelerated by the recasting of trustee powers and duties in the Trustee Act 2000. Further contractualization might provoke a shift into third-party-beneficiary contract and agency models, a process that may be helped by the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999. The shift to contract-tort models may have gone too far in empowering trustees at the expense of entrustors, and on a broader level, in deregulating capital investment markets.

ISBN: 535-167X

Cited in Independent Trustee Services Ltd v G P Noble Trustees Ltd [2012] EWCA Civ 195, [82] (Lloyd LJ)

Cited in Thorner v Major [2009] UKHL 18, [2009] 1 WLR 776, [29] (Lord Walker of Gestingthorpe); Jones v Kernott [2011] 3 WLR 1121, [21] (Lord Walker of Gestingthorpe and Baroness Hale of Richmond)

An investigation of a flashpoint in the judicial control of insolvency. I examine how the equitable law of future assignments, designed to enforce paid-for promises and uphold the interests of assignees, is in tension with another 'equitable' policy established by statute, namely the jurisdiction to prevent preferential assignments that tend to defraud creditors by blocking recourse against debtors' assets. The High Court of Australia has been particularly active in this area, issuing an important judgments from the early 20th century to the present day. This body of law demonstrates the intermingling of equity jurisprudence and statute.

ISBN: 9781849462198

Cited in Crossco No 4 Unlimited v Jolan Ltd [2012] 2 All ER 754n, [82], [94] (Etherton LJ)

Analysis of theory and history of equity, in ancient law and modern common law.

ISBN: 1576072312

In this festschrift, appellate judges, academic lawyers and practitioners have joined to celebrate Edward Burn's career as a searching writer and brilliant teacher. Essays volume cover topics including: the rationality of English land law; the reach of land registration; the nature of proprietary estoppel; the essential attributes of trusts and how they can be exported to Civilian systems; the nature of fiduciary liability; the relationship between restitution and equity; the duty of care in will drafting; form and substance in tax, lease and mortgage law; the relationship between English and Romanesque prescription theories; and the study of Roman law in Oxford.

ISBN: 406964408

A fundamental challenge to the Charity Commission's assumption that the Charities Act 2006 has allowed it to ignore the pre-existing law on public benefit.

The Court of Appeal's decision in Pitt v Holt has largely brought the 'rule in Re Hastings-Bass' into line with orthodox trust law principle. This note considers the consequences of this re-evaluation for understanding of the detail of the rule's operation.

ISBN: 20449593

The House of Lords and the High Court of Australia in separate decisions made within weeks of each other grappled with the correct use of equitable and restitutionary doctrines augmenting the operation of contract law in commercial relationships. The Lords sharply narrowed the doctrine of estoppel where a contract failed to materialize after heavy reliance by a putative joint venturer; but were permissive in allowing a limited quantum meruit remedy based on unjust enrichment. The High Court rejected any possibility of a leapfrogging claim to allow recovery of enrichment by a subcontractor, and the plurality in obiter comments threw doubt on the existence of an autonomous unjust enrichment principle in Australian law.

ISBN: 0023-933X

Integrated investment banks trading in securities markets can end up acting against the interests of clients they advise in mergers and other deals. Typically the bank's retainer excludes fiduciary duties so as to allow the bank activities which otherwise would constitute conflicts of interest. In ASIC v Citigroup the Federal Court of Australia held that formal consent to such exclusions of duty sufficed, and that fully informed consent was not requisite. The problem of pervasive conflicts of interest in financial markets was identified, but the judge held that only a legislative solution would be legitimate.

ISBN: 0023-933X

Describes the tightening of the application of the loyalty rules for fiduciaries such as solicitors, so as to prevent them serving two clients with inconsistent interests. Attempts to find an implied consent to limitation of the demanding sole interest duty of loyalty in the Court of Appeal are rejected in the House of Lords decision in Hilton v Barker Booth & Eastwood [2005] UKHL 8; [2005] 1 W.L.R.567.

ISBN: 0023-933X

Casenote on CA decision in Oxley v Hiscock, which opens a new chapter in the law on 'family home' constructive trusts (and also says something about proprietary estoppel).

ISBN: 0023-933X

Recent High Court, Privy Council and House of Lords authorites investigate when equitable doctrine will allow relief against confiscation of an estate contract where a purchaser exceeds a time condition. In Tanwar v Cauchi the High Court resolves a confused set of authorities and tilts towards strict enforcement of duties.

ISBN: 0023-933X

A contribution to the debate about the future of Equity hung on the back of a review of a book review. Much reviled in Australia

ISBN: 0023-933X