Richard Selwyn Sharpe
Senior chancery junior whose practice covers the Northern and North Eastern circuits. Specialist in property disputes, contested wills and trusts.
Practice Area
Panel
- Contributing Author
Qualified Year
- 1985
Membership
- Chancery Bar Association
Education
- Bristol University LLB
1 Contributions by Richard Selwyn Sharpe
PRACTICE NOTES
Trustee investment disputes: duties, standard investment criteria, breach, causation, quantum, defences, procedure, pensions, land and ESG (England and Wales)
Examples of claims against trustees for breach of investment duties include:
delay—where the trustee is slow to deploy trust capital
poor investment choices—e.g. reckless exposure to high-risk, undiversified holdings
unauthorised investments—such as disregarding a mandate to invest only in specified assets
not investing the trust fund as required
Trustees' powers of investment
Trustees should confine themselves to authorised investments. They must consider both the statutory general power of investment and any extra powers, exclusions, or limits set out in the trust instrument.
The “general power of investment” permits trustees to make any kind of investment they could make if absolutely entitled to the trust assets. An exception applies to “investments in land other than in loans secured on land”, which are governed by a separate provision (see “Investments in land” below).
This general power sits alongside powers conferred other than under the Trustee Act 2000 (TrA 2000), for instance by a trust deed, and remains subject to any limitation imposed by the relevant trust instrument (at least, one introduced after 3 August 1961)...
Private Client
If you expected to see yourself on this page, click here.
