A fiduciary is a person who holds a legal or ethical relationship of trust with one or more other parties. Typically, a fiduciary prudently takes care of money or other assets for another person. One party, for example, a corporate trust company or the trust department of a bank, acts in a fiduciary capacity to another party, who, for example, has entrusted funds to the fiduciary for safekeeping or investment. Likewise, financial advisers, financial planners, and asset managers, including managers of pension plans, endowments, and other tax-exempt assets, are considered fiduciaries under applicable statutes and laws. In a fiduciary relationship, one person, in a position of vulnerability, justifiably vests confidence, good faith, reliance, and trust in another whose aid, advice, or protection is sought in some matter. In such a relation, good conscience requires the fiduciary to act at all times for the sole benefit and interest of the one who trusts.
A fiduciary is someone who has undertaken to act for and on behalf of another in a particular matter in circumstances which give rise to a relationship of trust and confidence.
In trust law, a constructive trust is an equitable remedy imposed by a court to benefit a party that has been wrongfully deprived of its rights due to either a person obtaining or holding a legal property right which they should not possess due to unjust enrichment or interference, or due to a breach of fiduciary duty, which is intercausative with unjust enrichment and/or property interference. It is a type of implied trust.
Milan Dale Smith Jr. is an American attorney and jurist serving as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Smith's brother, Gordon H. Smith, was a Republican U.S. Senator from 1997 to 2009. Milan Smith is neither a Republican nor a Democrat.
Legal malpractice is the term for negligence, breach of fiduciary duty, or breach of contract by a lawyer during the provision of legal services that causes harm to a client.
Canadian Aero Service Ltd v O'Malley, [1974] SCR 592, is a leading civil case decided by the Supreme Court of Canada on corporate director and officer liability.
Vivien v. WorldCom, Inc., No. 3:02-cv-01329 established a new legal theory permitting workers to recover for losses in their 401(k) retirement plans caused by investment in their employers' stock.
Bristol and West Building Society v Mothew [1996] EWCA Civ 533 is a leading English fiduciary law and professional negligence case, concerning a solicitor's duty of care and skill, and the nature of fiduciary duties. The case is globally cited for its definition of a fiduciary and the circumstances in which a fiduciary relationship arises.
Lac Minerals Ltd v International Corona Resources Ltd is a leading Supreme Court of Canada decision on the nature of fiduciary and confidential relationships that can be created in the course of business, together with appropriate remedies for restitution when such relationships are breached.
United States v. Navajo Nation, 556 U.S. 287 (2009) was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Navajo Nation initiated proceedings in the Court of Federal Claims alleging that when they sought the assistance of the United States Secretary of the Interior to renegotiate their original leasing agreement with the Peabody Coal Company in 1984, a procedural process defined by the 1964 Indian Mineral Leasing Act (IMLA) of 1938, the United States Secretary of the Interior had been improperly influenced by the coal company, and as a result, had breached his fiduciary duty to the Nation when he approved the 1987 lease amendments.
McNally v. United States, 483 U.S. 350 (1987), was a case in which the United States Supreme Court decided that the federal statute criminalizing mail fraud applied only to the schemes and artifices defrauding victims of money or property, as opposed to those defrauding citizens of their rights to good government. The case was superseded one year later when the United States Congress amended the law to specifically include honest services fraud in the mail and wire fraud statutes.
Jones v. Harris Associates L.P., 559 U.S. 335 (2010), is a case decided by the United States Supreme Court in which investors claimed that the fees they paid to an investment advisor were too steep, violating the Investment Company Act of 1940.
Pilmer v Duke Group Ltd is an Australian company law case concerning the adequacy of consideration paid for shares, as well as on the questions of duty of care and fiduciary duty owed by experts retained in such matters.
Sun Indalex Finance, LLC v United Steelworkers, 2013 SCC 6, arising from the Ontario courts as Re Indalex Limited, is a decision of the Supreme Court of Canada that deals with the question of priorities of claims in proceedings under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act, and how they intersect with the fiduciary duties employers have as administrators of pension plans.
United States v. Mitchell, 463 U.S. 206 (1983), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the United States is accountable in money damages for alleged breaches of trust in connection with its management of forest resources on allotted lands of the Quinault Reservation.
FHR European Ventures LLP v Cedar Capital Partners LLC[2014] UKSC 45 is a landmark decision of the United Kingdom Supreme Court which holds that a bribe or secret commission accepted by an agent is held on trust for his principal. In so ruling, the Court partially overruled Sinclair Investments (UK) Ltd v Versailles Trade Finance Ltd in favour of The Attorney General for Hong Kong v Reid (UKPC), a ruling from the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council on appeal from New Zealand.
In re Citigroup Inc Shareholder Derivative Litigation, 964 A 2d 106 is a US corporate law case, concerning the standard under Delaware law for the duty of loyalty among directors' duties.
Fifth Third Bancorp v. Dudenhoeffer, 573 U.S. 409 (2014), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the court found Employee stockownership (ESOP) fiduciaries have the same prudential duties as non-ESOP fiduciaries, as set by ERISA, except that they are not required to diversify their investments beyond shares of the employer's stock.
Reid Collins & Tsai LLP is a national trial law firm with offices in New York, Austin, Dallas, Wilmington, and Washington, D.C. The firm represents plaintiffs in complex commercial litigation on a mixed-fee or contingency-fee basis.
Intel Corp. Investment Policy Committee v. Sulyma, 589 U.S. ___ (2020), was a United States Supreme Court case. It decided that, for purposes of the requirement in the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 that plaintiffs with “actual knowledge” of an alleged fiduciary breach file suit within three years of gaining that knowledge, a plaintiff does not necessarily have “actual knowledge” of the information contained in disclosures that he receives but does not read or cannot recall reading. This affirmed the decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
United States v. Navajo Nation, 537 U.S. 488 (2003) was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Navajo Nation initiated proceedings alleging that the Secretary of the Interior had breached their fiduciary duty to the Tribe by not acting in the Tribe's best interests.
