In recent years, there has been growing concern about the use of express trusts to perpetuate wealth inequality and the need to transform trust law to accommodate ESG. To address these challenges, this lecture presents a theory of express trusts that articulates their distinct ability to protect the stewardship of assets for long-term goals while shielding those goals from erosion by settlors, managers, and beneficiaries. In particular, the lecture challenges the notion that only beneficiaries with the right to hold trustees accountable for benefits due to them can enforce the trust. This theory can help to define the legitimate limits of express trusts, including ‘massively discretionary trusts’, and to devise innovative trust structures that surpass the corporate form in organising businesses for impact investing (video).
[Cambridge Private Law Centre, 27 February 2024]
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