Exclusion of duty and the irreducible core content of trusteeship: A re-assessment

• Main Authors: LEE, Rebecca, YIP, Man
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2020
• Subjects: Trustee's duties; trust; irreducible core; exclusion clauses; duty modification clauses; Bartlett duty; Estates and Trusts
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/sol_research/3248; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/sol_research/article/5219/viewcontent/Exclusion_of_Duty_and_the_Irreducible_Core_Content_of_Trusteeship_av.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

This article reviews Millett LJ’s classic characterisation of the irreducible core content of trusteeship. Using duty modification / exclusion clauses that are commonly found in modern trust-corporate structures to circumvent a trustee’s duty to actively engage in corporate management as an example, this article has two main objectives. First, this article re-examines the duty to act honestly and in good faith in the irreducible core; and secondly, it considers how our reanalysis can help conceptualise and construe the ‘residual supervisory obligation’ enunciated by the courts in the recent Zhang v DBS litigation.