Fiduciary Duty, Statute, and Pension Fund Governance: The Search for a Shared Conception of Sustainable Investment.
Fiduciary duty is the golden rule 'regulating' the relationship between trustees and beneficiaries. In principle, it regulates behaviour by pre-empting those actions that would harm the interests of beneficiaries while promoting duties of care consistent with the interests of those that st...
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| Format: | Working paper |
| Language: | English |
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School of Geography and Environment (University of Oxford)
2011
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| _version_ | 1797076482509504512 |
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| author | Clark, G |
| author_facet | Clark, G |
| author_sort | Clark, G |
| collection | OXFORD |
| description | Fiduciary duty is the golden rule 'regulating' the relationship between trustees and beneficiaries. In principle, it regulates behaviour by pre-empting those actions that would harm the interests of beneficiaries while promoting duties of care consistent with the interests of those that stand to gain from well-intentioned and responsible decision-making. But, in many respects, fiduciary duty is a chimera: it looks to convention rather than forward to innovation in investment management. As such, governance policies and practice must provide the instruments that simple recipes of fiduciary duty are ill-equipped to provide. In this paper, I argue that the design and governance of investment management institutions is, actually, more important than honouring the principle fiduciary duty which, in the context of Anglo-American statute, is increasingly empty. In doing so, I re-read the classic cases that define the principle while identifying the problems which the golden rule has been unable to resolve. This is the back-drop for reconsidering the virtues or otherwise of a governance-focused regulatory regimes. In the penultimate section of the paper I focus on the mechanisms currently used to cultivate a regulatory regime that is at once long-term oriented and responsive to the climate change challenge that confronts humanity. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-07T00:04:22Z |
| format | Working paper |
| id | oxford-uuid:770a0ab2-b363-4dc4-be55-0a217437a136 |
| institution | University of Oxford |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-07T00:04:22Z |
| publishDate | 2011 |
| publisher | School of Geography and Environment (University of Oxford) |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oxford-uuid:770a0ab2-b363-4dc4-be55-0a217437a1362022-03-26T20:20:29ZFiduciary Duty, Statute, and Pension Fund Governance: The Search for a Shared Conception of Sustainable Investment.Working paperhttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_8042uuid:770a0ab2-b363-4dc4-be55-0a217437a136EnglishDepartment of Economics - ePrintsSchool of Geography and Environment (University of Oxford)2011Clark, GFiduciary duty is the golden rule 'regulating' the relationship between trustees and beneficiaries. In principle, it regulates behaviour by pre-empting those actions that would harm the interests of beneficiaries while promoting duties of care consistent with the interests of those that stand to gain from well-intentioned and responsible decision-making. But, in many respects, fiduciary duty is a chimera: it looks to convention rather than forward to innovation in investment management. As such, governance policies and practice must provide the instruments that simple recipes of fiduciary duty are ill-equipped to provide. In this paper, I argue that the design and governance of investment management institutions is, actually, more important than honouring the principle fiduciary duty which, in the context of Anglo-American statute, is increasingly empty. In doing so, I re-read the classic cases that define the principle while identifying the problems which the golden rule has been unable to resolve. This is the back-drop for reconsidering the virtues or otherwise of a governance-focused regulatory regimes. In the penultimate section of the paper I focus on the mechanisms currently used to cultivate a regulatory regime that is at once long-term oriented and responsive to the climate change challenge that confronts humanity. |
| spellingShingle | Clark, G Fiduciary Duty, Statute, and Pension Fund Governance: The Search for a Shared Conception of Sustainable Investment. |
| title | Fiduciary Duty, Statute, and Pension Fund Governance: The Search for a Shared Conception of Sustainable Investment. |
| title_full | Fiduciary Duty, Statute, and Pension Fund Governance: The Search for a Shared Conception of Sustainable Investment. |
| title_fullStr | Fiduciary Duty, Statute, and Pension Fund Governance: The Search for a Shared Conception of Sustainable Investment. |
| title_full_unstemmed | Fiduciary Duty, Statute, and Pension Fund Governance: The Search for a Shared Conception of Sustainable Investment. |
| title_short | Fiduciary Duty, Statute, and Pension Fund Governance: The Search for a Shared Conception of Sustainable Investment. |
| title_sort | fiduciary duty statute and pension fund governance the search for a shared conception of sustainable investment |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT clarkg fiduciarydutystatuteandpensionfundgovernancethesearchforasharedconceptionofsustainableinvestment |