I've been fascinated by the role of fiduciaries for over 30 years, and particularly by the laws that seek to bring some level of control to the vast power that they have to influence the lives of others – that power exists for the benefit of others, but equally creates a vulnerability to abuse which the law rightly regulates. That regulation differs across jurisdictions, which makes it interesting to study and think about. I have degrees from New Zealand, the US (Michigan), and the UK (Cambridge), which have positioned me well to consider the twists and turns in the story that is the common law’s attempt to grapple with this fascinating and vital social institution.
I wrote
Fiduciary Loyalty: Protecting the Due Performance of Non-Fiduciary Duties
This book is the pre-eminent authoritative study of fiduciary obligations in Anglo-Australian law.
It was the first book to thoroughly examine the way in which fiduciary duties apply across a number of different kinds of fiduciary actor, rather than looking at different kinds of fiduciaries separately. It made a massive contribution to the scholarly literature on fiduciary duties, and was an inspiration for the research that I conducted when writing my book.
The book was written by Professor Finn early in his career, long before he became a judge in Australia, and showcases what can be done with careful analysis of apparently unconnected case law, and the advance in understanding that this sort of analysis can offer.
This book provides a useful counterpoint to the analysis offered in my book, given it focuses on the US perspective on fiduciary duties.
Professor Frankel has been writing about fiduciary duties for decades, and is a grand dame of the academy – she writes lucidly and makes cogent arguments for the way legal regulation (of various kinds) should tackle real-world problems of disloyalty.
In Fiduciary Law, Tamar Frankel examines the structure, principles, themes, and objectives of fiduciary law. Fiduciaries, which include corporate managers, money managers, lawyers, and physicians among others, are entrusted with money or power. Frankel explains how fiduciary law is designed to offer protection from abuse of this method of safekeeping. She deals with fiduciaries in general, and identifies situations in which fiduciary law falls short of offering protection. Frankel analyzes fiduciary debates, and argues that greater preventive measures are required. She offers guidelines for determining the boundaries and substance of fiduciary law, and discusses how failure to enforce fiduciary law…
This book is an encyclopedic treatment of fiduciary law, covering the application of fiduciary duties in a multitude of different kinds of fiduciary relationships as well as the history of the doctrine and its application in various different legal systems.
For anyone interested in the regulation and control of fiduciary actors, this is an outstanding resource.
The Oxford Handbook of Fiduciary Law provides a comprehensive overview of critical topics in fiduciary law and theory through chapters authored by leading scholars. The Handbook opens with surveys of the many fields of law in which fiduciary duties arise, including agency law, trust law, corporate law, pension law, bankruptcy law, family law, employment law, legal representation, health care, and international law. Drawing on these surveys, the Handbook offers a synthetic analysis of fiduciary law's key concepts and principles.
Chapters in the Handbook explore the defining features of fiduciary relationships, clarify the distinctive fiduciary duties that arise in these relationships,…
In this book I provide a comprehensive analysis of the nature and function of the legal doctrines that seek to elicit loyalty from fiduciaries (people who act on behalf of others, like agents, lawyers, trustees, company directors, etc). The discussion is focused on UK and Australian law, which provides an important counterpoint to US understandings of the concept of fiduciary loyalty. The central argument is that fiduciary duties in Anglo-Australian law operate – and have operated consistently in this way for over 200 years – differently from other kinds of legal duties: they provide a subsidiary and prophylatic form of protection to other duties owed by the fiduciary, seeking to insulate the fiduciary from temptations and influences that are likely to interfere with the proper performance of those others duties.
