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We're hearing a lot about fiduciary duties lately. The 2024 version of the Department of Labor's (DOL) rule would classify as a fiduciary anyone selling products and/or advice to retirement plans, including IRAs and Roth IRAs. That was a scary enough concept that three insurance professionals testified before federal court that the fiduciary-only rule would impose irreparable harm on financial professionals and their clients. The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas granted a stay in the lawsuit to prevent the DOL rule from going into effect this year, stating that the plaintiff's complaint was likely to be upheld by the full court. Are fiduciary obligations on the way out? Not at all. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"The Law of Loyalty" by Lionel Smith is a comprehensive and ambitious work that delves into the justificatory principles behind the regulation of relationships of administration, where one acts on behalf of another. Smith's book challenges conventional accounts of fiduciary law by exploring the commonalities between private and public law administration. The text also redefines fiduciary duties, arguing that they are not traditional legal obligations but rather prerequisites for the effective exercise of legal powers. Smith's innovative approach makes "The Law of Loyalty" a valuable resource for those seeking a deeper understanding of fiduciary relationships and legal principles. [Extracted from the article]

Students' physical and digital lives are increasingly entangled. It is difficult to separate students' digital well‐being from their offline well‐being given that artificial intelligence increasingly shapes both. Within the context of education's fiduciary and moral duty to ensure safe, appropriate and effective digital learning spaces for students, the continuing merger between artificial intelligence and learning analytics not only opens up many opportunities for more responsive teaching and learning but also raises concerns, specifically for previously disadvantaged and vulnerable students. While digital well‐being is a well‐established research focus, it is not clear how AI‐Powered Educational Decision Support Systems (AI‐EDSS) might impact on the inherent, situational and pathogenic vulnerability of students. In this conceptual paper, we map the digital well‐being of previously disadvantaged and vulnerable students in four overlapping fields, namely (1) digital well‐being research; (2) digital well‐being research in education; (3) digital well‐being research in learning analytics; and (4) digital well‐being in AI‐informed educational contexts. With this as the basis, we engage with six domains from the IEEE standard 7010–2020—IEEE Recommended Practice for Assessing the Impact of Autonomous and Intelligent Systems on Human Well‐Being and provide pointers for safeguarding and enhancing disadvantaged and vulnerable student digital well‐being in AI‐EDSS. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topic Digital well‐being research is a well‐established focus referring to the impact of digital engagement on human well‐being.Digital well‐being is effectively inseparable from general well‐being as it is increasingly difficult to disentangle our online and offline lives and, as such, inherently intersectional.Artificial Intelligence shows promise for enhancing human digital well‐being, but there are concerns about issues such as privacy, bias, transparency, fairness and accountability.The notion of 'vulnerable individuals' includes individuals who were previously disadvantaged, and those with inherent, situational and/or pathogenic vulnerabilities.While current advances in AI‐EDSS may support identification of digital wellness, proxies for digital wellness should be used with care.What this study contributes An overview of digital well‐being research with specific reference how it may impact on vulnerable students.Illustrates specific vulnerabilities in five domains from the IEEE standard 7010–2020—IEEE Recommended Practice for Assessing the Impact of Autonomous and Intelligent Systems on Human Well‐Being selected for their significance in online learning environments.Pointers for the design and implementation of fair, ethical, accountable, and transparent AI‐EDSS with specific reference to vulnerable students.Implications for practice and/or policy Fairness, equity, transparency and accountability in AI‐EDSS affect all students but may have a greater (positive or negative) impact on vulnerable students.A critically informed understanding of the nature of students' vulnerability—whether as inherent, situational and/or pathogenic, as well as temporal/permanent aspects—is crucial.Since AI‐EDSS can exacerbate existing vulnerabilities resulting in pathogenic vulnerability, care is needed when designing AI‐EDSS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the wake of excessive judicial reliance on a contractarian approach to the assessment of fiduciary duties in commercial contexts, both judicial and academic concern has been voiced as to whether such an approach is the most appropriate to ensure fair dealing. What's more, the emergence of novel commercial relationships facilitated by changing values in business and exponential leaps in the capabilities and use of technology warrant a reassessment of whether contractarianism is fit for the purpose of ushering in appropriate legal analysis so that such new developments can be appropriately facilitated. This article argues that contractarianism is not fit for that purpose and that the 'characterisation' of the relationship between parties is a superior and more equitable approach to determining the extent of fiduciary duties in commercial contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the advance of technology, several crowdfunding platforms have emerged in Hong Kong to host informal public donation appeals. Unlike charitable crowdfunding activities, these appeals focus on crowdfunding to provide relief to specific individuals or groups in need. Due to the recent emergence of online informal public donation appeals and their lack of public benefit, regulatory bodies have not paid much attention to their regulation. However, recent media coverage highlighting scandals of maladministration of donation funds in the context of informal public donation appeals has impelled regulators to establish a systemic framework to govern crowdfunding platforms that host informal public donation appeals. This article addresses two main aspects of this topic. First, it discusses the operation of crowdfunding platforms that host informal public donation appeals and the risks associated with them. Second, it explores the feasibility of utilising trust law to regulate the administration of donation funds by these crowdfunding platforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A summary is presented of the bill Uniform Fiduciary Income and Principal Act enacted in Florida.

Real estate investment trusts (REITs) have gained considerable investment participation and academic research. However, little is known about personal financial advisors' knowledge, perceived benefits, personal investments, and client recommendations related to public REITs, private REITs, and private real estate investments. This research extends the real estate investment literature by examining all of these unknowns, offering insight into financial advisors' knowledge of real estate investments, client recommendations, personal investment decisions, and financial institution performance resulting from such knowledge and practices. The results show that financial advisors have moderate levels of knowledge public REITs, private REITs, and private real estate investments. It is further shown that the perceived investment benefits translate into personal investments by financial advisors but not necessarily client recommendations. Specifically, financial advisors' perceived benefits of private REITs and public REITs were significantly related to client recommendations but private real estate investments were not. The disconnect between personal investment decisions and client recommendations is interesting and may be due to the capital requirements, property management expertise, and risks associated with private real estate investments. The research also showed that only private REIT recommendations were positively associated with financial institution performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental and social (ES) funds in non-ES families must balance incorporating the stakeholders' interests they advertise and maximizing shareholder value favored by their families. We find that these funds support ES proposals that are far from the majority threshold, while opposing them when their vote is more likely to be pivotal. This strategy results in a high average support for ES proposals, seemingly consistent with their fiduciary responsibilities, while opposing contested ES proposals. This greenwashing strategy is driven by ES funds in non-ES families who cater to institutional investors. Indeed, these funds experience lower inflows when providing low average support for ES proposals. This strategic voting is not exhibited in governance proposals, nor by ES funds in ES families or by non-ES funds in non-ES families, reinforcing the notion of strategic voting to accommodate family preferences while appearing to meet the fiduciary responsibilities of the funds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

All over the world, many companies are including oocyte cryopreservation for nonmedical reasons, also popularly known as nonmedical egg freezing (NMEF), within their employee benefits packages. However, it is important to ask whether companies are ethically justified in offering NMEF as a benefit for their employees. The inclusion of NMEF within companies' employee benefits packages could be ethically justified in two ways. On the one hand, company‐sponsored NMEF can serve as a strategy to mitigate or eliminate gender inequalities in the workplace, such as female underrepresentation in positions of authority and leadership and the so‐called work/motherhood conflict. On the other hand, company‐sponsored NMEF can be a means to expand women's reproductive autonomy by making egg freezing accessible to those women who are not able to afford it otherwise. This article calls into question these ethical justifications. We argue that by offering NMEF as an employee benefit, companies maintain current workplace inequalities and impose an option for women with multiple risks and externalities. Therefore, companies' offering of NMEF benefits cannot be ethically justified. Furthermore, we argue that companies that offer NMEF benefits incur fiduciary responsibilities related to the physiological, emotional, psychological, and financial costs of the use of company‐sponsored NMEF. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Illinois courts have departed from the corporate-law jurisprudence that traditionally served as a champion of fiduciary duties. Historically, Illinois courts have consistently protected minority shareholders and punished directors and those in control for engaging in unfaithful, abusive, and deceitful behavior. In recent years, however, the Illinois Supreme Court has taken a technical approach to fiduciary duties, resulting in wrongdoers getting away with unconscionable conduct. First, this Article will demonstrate why Illinois has historically been characterized as a "shareholder" state by comparing the Illinois and Delaware corporate statutes and examining Illinois courts' favorable fiduciary duty jurisprudence. In the latter half of the twentieth century, the Illinois Supreme Court took a firm stance against fiduciaries when they engaged in conflicts of interest, seized corporate opportunities, and competed with the entity they served. The Illinois Supreme Court did not limit its stance to situations involving the fiduciary-entity relationship; however, it also held fiduciaries to the same standard when they dealt among themselves. Consistent with these approaches, the Illinois Supreme Court also took a broad approach to the related concept of oppression when it interpreted the term to mean abusive and not necessarily illegal or fraudulent. Next, by examining two recent Illinois Supreme Court decisions, Indeck Energy Services, Inc. v. DePodesta and Walworth Investments-LG, LLC v. Mu Sigma, Inc., this Article will examine whether there is a countervailing trend in state judiciary practices. Indeck represents the Illinois Supreme Court's departure from its long-standing jurisprudence covering the fiduciary duty of loyalty, specifically, the standard for establishing the usurpation of a corporate opportunity. In Walworth, the court, applying Delaware law, took an extremely technical approach in interpreting an anti-reliance clause. This analysis will illustrate the Illinois Supreme Court's failure to recognize the defendant's fraudulent behavior, which induced the plaintiff to agree to the anti-reliance clause. Finally, the Article concludes with a discussion of Illinois courts' jurisprudence covering anti-reliance clauses in fraud in the inducement claims, offering solutions courts and lawyers can take to address the problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As some of the largest institutional investors in the United States, public pension funds wield considerable power over inuestment decisions. A recent trend highlights this extraordinary power: state pension funds have started exploiting their retirees ' pensions to force inuestment companies to invest in accordance with their respective states' political priorities. Nowhere is this trend more obvious than in the environmental, social, and governance field. On one hand, states like Maine haue passed legislation prohibiting publicpension funds from inuesting in fossil fuels companies. On the other hand, states like Texas haue passed laws prohibiting state entities from doing business with companies that oppose the fossil fuel and gun manufacturing industries. Investment companies operating across state lines are therefore caught between a rock and a hard place : continue investing in fossil fuels and risk antagonizing liberal states like Maine or diuest from fossil fuels and lose business from conseruatiue states like Texas. Pension funds can exploit public retirees' funds for political ends because of a subtle fiduciary orientation surrounding public pension funds. Whereas private pension funds are governed by uniform federal laws that center fiduciary duties around pension plan participants and beneficiaries, public pension funds are governed by a patchwork of state laws that center fiduciary duties around the funds themselves. Thus, states are free to tailor their own pension fund investment rules as they see fit, sometimes at the expense of retirees. The result is an assortment offifty different legal systems, piled on top of the recent trend toward politicizing inuestment decisions. Often, as the cases of Texas and Maine show, investment companies will find themselves unable to simultaneously comply with the various public pension fund requirements from state to state. Moreover, because state treasurers exercise almost unbridled discretion ouer inuestment allocations, they can all but freely abuse pensions funds in pursuit ofpolitical ends. With trillions of dollars under management, retirees stand to lose the most. This Noteargues thatpublicpension inuestment laws need urgent reform and standardization to prevent sacrificing retirees' financial security in seruice Of Political priorities. To do so, state legislatures should pass laws modeled after the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, which governs private pension plans. Such standardization will ease the burden of compliance for investment companies and inuestment aduisers while simultaneously forcing pension fund managers to prioritize retirees' pecuniary gains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Asset managers – financial institutions like BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard – manage trillions of dollars of US household financial assets, including public pension funds at the federal, state, and municipal level. The structural power of asset managers means they play a decisive role in corporate decision-making, while the conflicts of interest inherent in their business model and a short-term interpretation of their fiduciary duties means they do not serve the actual interests of their economic beneficiaries in a sustainable economy. I propose establishing a public asset manager in the United States to serve as the asset manager for public pension funds. This article situates this proposed institutional reform in the broader evolution of asset manager capitalism and explains how establishing a public asset manager is an institutional reform that would shift the financial system toward serving the actual interests of the people and social systems on which it depends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on unique ethical challenges faced by individuals affected by incarceration or whose surrogate decision-maker is incarcerated, highlighting issues such as surrogate decision-making, intra-family communication challenges, and access to decision-makers.

Copyright of AIS: Ars Iuris Salmanticensis is the property of Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Compassionate care of the surgical patient recognizes the wholeness of each individual. Patients and their caregivers come to healthcare providers with the hope of relief from pain and suffering and aspirations for the potential to feel well or be "normal" again. Many lean on their personal faith and prayer for spiritual comfort and petitions for healing. We discuss a case in which prayer is incorporated into the surgical Time Out, a scenario not uncommon in faith‐based hospitals, and offer a framework to evaluate the practice that incorporates ethical principles of beneficence, non‐maleficence, patient/parental autonomy, justice, and the fiduciary responsibility of the healthcare provider. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This document is a summary of the Special Issue of the Journal of Personalized Medicine, which features selected papers from the pHealth 2022 Conference held in Oslo, Norway. The conference focused on the advancement of personalized health using technologies such as mobile technologies, artificial intelligence, and big data. The papers cover topics such as healthcare transformation, automation and artificial intelligence in healthcare, and security and privacy in personalized health. The document concludes with a chapter on eHealth solutions. The editors express their gratitude to the authors and reviewers for their contributions to the volume. [Extracted from the article]

We examine the variable annuity market to study conflicts of interest and the effect of fiduciary duty in brokerage markets. Insurers typically pay brokers higher commissions for selling more expensive annuities. Our results indicate that sales are four times as sensitive to brokers' interests as to investors'. To limit conflicts of interest, the Department of Labor proposed a rule in 2016 holding brokers to a fiduciary standard. We find that after the proposal, sales of high-expense products fell by 52 |$\%$| as sales became more sensitive to expenses. Based on our structural estimates, investor welfare improved overall. Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix, which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I argue that lying in business negotiations is pro tanto wrong and no less wrong than lying in other contexts. First, I assert that lying in general is pro tanto wrong. Then, I examine and refute five arguments to the effect that lying in a business context is less wrong than lying in other contexts. The common thought behind these arguments—based on consent, self-defence, the "greater good," fiduciary duty, and practicality—is that the particular circumstances which are characteristic of business negotiations are such that the wrongness of lying is either mitigated or eliminated completely. I argue that all these "special exemption" arguments fail. I conclude that, in the absence of a credible argument to the contrary, the same moral constraints must apply to lying in business negotiations as apply to lying in other contexts. Furthermore, I show that for the negotiator, there are real practical benefits from not lying. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fiduciary law has become the doctrine of choice in scholarship aiming to protect vulnerable parties from powerful decisionmakers. But fiduciary law cannot fill all the gaps in those impersonal, public relationships because the beneficiary class is large, disparate, and widely dispersed. Public leaders and decision makers cannot zealously pursue the interests of all parties vulnerable to their decision making and they are often driven by various personal interests in choosing which set of beneficiary interests to prioritize. The persistent myth that leaders of large groups are fiduciaries and that fiduciary obligation is the answer to all power imbalance problems harms the very people it claims to protect. This Article is the first to argue that the fiduciary myth is harmful. The myth is most prevalent in corporate governance, in the notion that corporate directors owe fiduciary duties to the corporation and its shareholders. The move to replicate corporate fiduciary duties in other settings is misguided because the fiduciary myth undermines, rather than promotes, ethical director behavior in corporate law. It would do even worse in other public relationships. Trustworthiness, not fiduciary loyalty, is the character trait the law should work to inculcate in public leaders and decision makers. Fiduciary doctrine obscures trustworthiness. The threat of fiduciary litigation makes the supposed fiduciary relationship adversarial. It sets the parties at odds with each other, when the goal is supposed to be to align their interests and to encourage empathy on the part of those in power. Attempts to adapt fiduciary obligation to the contexts of other public relationships can only replicate the harms of the fiduciary myth. Suggestions to export fiduciary principles are well-intentioned. But good intentions alone do not effective solutions make, and such suggestions often do more harm than good when they over-promise and underdeliver. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Burkholderia cenocepacia (B cenocepacia) is a gram-negative bacteria associated with significant morbidity and mortality following lung transplantation. Most US transplant programs consider B cenocepacia colonization to be an absolute contraindication to transplantation. This article argues that, if clinicians have good clinical reasons to expect poor outcomes for patients with B cenocepacia, then offering transplantation anyway is an abrogation of clinicians’ fiduciary duties. This article also discusses other fiduciary obligations transplant programs might have to patients with B cenocepacia, such as referring to another transplant center, considering novel treatment options, and investigating how the infection’s virulence factors stratify that patient’s risk for poor transplant outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Informativeness, in the context of clinical trials, defines whether a study's results definitively answer its research questions with meaningful next steps. Many clinical trials end uninformatively. Clinical trial protocols are required to go through reviews in regulatory and ethical domains: areas that focus on specifics outside of trial design, biostatistics, and research methods. Private foundations and government funders rarely require focused scientific design reviews for these areas. There are no documented standards and processes, or even best practices, toward a capability for funders to perform scientific design reviews after their peer review process prior to a funding commitment. Main body: Considering the investment in and standardization of ethical and regulatory reviews, and the prevalence of studies never finishing or failing to provide definitive results, it may be that scientific reviews of trial designs with a focus on informativeness offer the best chance for improved outcomes and return-on-investment in clinical trials. A maturity model is a helpful tool for knowledge transfer to help grow capabilities in a new area or for those looking to perform a self-assessment in an existing area. Such a model is offered for scientific design reviews of clinical trial protocols. This maturity model includes 11 process areas and 5 maturity levels. Each of the 55 process area levels is populated with descriptions on a continuum toward an optimal state to improve trial protocols in the areas of risk of failure or uninformativeness. Conclusion: This tool allows for prescriptive guidance on next investments to improve attributes of post-funding reviews of trials, with a focus on informativeness. Traditional pre-funding peer review has limited capacity for trial design review, especially for detailed biostatistical and methodological review. Select non-industry funders have begun to explore or invest in post-funding review programs of grantee protocols, based on exemplars of such programs. Funders with a desire to meet fiduciary responsibilities and mission goals can use the described model to enhance efforts supporting trial participant commitment and faster cures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the implementation of the 2016 revised disability benefit claims regulation made by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) as of April 2024. The amendment aims to increase ERISA fiduciary standards and enhance procedural safeguards in claims processing. Also cited is the recommended use of the Chevron doctrine when interpreting ERISA claims procedure regulations.

The article focuses on balancing children's privacy interests online with the traditional parental rights, proposing the use of fiduciary duty principles to resolve conflicts between parents' financial incentives from sharenting and children's well-being. Topics include the evolution and risks of sharenting, the legal landscape regarding parental versus children's rights, and potential remedies such as granting children a right of action for breach of fiduciary duty against their parents.

The Yale Animal Resource Cost and Benchmarking survey, conducted in United States (US) academic animal research/resource centres (ARC), was modified to capture similar information in European Union (EU) (including the non-EU countries Switzerland and the United Kingdom) academic ARCs, who are members of the League of European Research Universities (LERU). Participating institutions came from Denmark, England, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Scotland, Spain and Switzerland. Survey data analysis suggests that (a) per diem rates have similar compositions in LERU and US programs, with >50% of the rates dedicated to recovering salary and fringe, followed by supplies (∼25%), facility costs (∼10%) and other expenses (∼15%); (b) ∼60% of US and LERU programs under-recover mouse care costs; (c) on average, LERU programs have a small positive net-operating balance, while US programs average a large deficit; (d) in LERU programs <50% of institutions fund the animal program deficit, while in US programs almost 100% of such deficits are covered by the institution; and (e) when setting per diem rates, both US and LERU programs rank cost accounting as the most influential factor. Both US and LERU programs are reluctant to raise per diem rates to the extent required to recover costs and, thus, continue to under-recover costs, resulting in the animal program being 'caught in the middle' between the competing financial challenges of investigator 'affordability' and the animal program's fiduciary responsibility to the institution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corporate law lacks a general theory of a board's power as fiduciary, and consequently, the law governing corporate fiduciary duties is notably unstable. This Article offers a novel theory that grounds corporate fiduciary duties in stronger microeconomic and legal foundations. The theory, coined the Judicial Monitoring Model (JMM), shows that even imperfect judicial monitoring makes shareholders and boards better off, even when there is no claim of a breach of the duties of loyalty or care as currently understood. The JMM synthesizes the law governing corporate fiduciary duties and other doctrines that protect principals, beneficiaries, and creditors from the risk of agent misconduct due to moral hazard. And it explains why courts evaluate corporate fiduciary conduct in some situations and defer to the board's business judgment in others. The JMM also generates surprising empirical predictions. It predicts that, in some cases, courts can and do provide substantive review of corporate transactions even if boards are informed, disinterested, and appear to be acting in good faith. The Article finds evidence of such review in old and recent cases, including a startling number of overlooked cases involving corporate waste. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most legal systems recognize trusteeship functions of individuals or institutions to act on behalf and in the interest of those who cannot legally act for themselves. They can be advanced for the effective protection of future generations and the Earth. Guidance for Earth Trusteeship exist in the form of two agreements created by global civil society, the 2000 Earth Charter and the 2018 Hague Principles. Current opportunities include the UN Secretary General's call for "repurposing the Trusteeship Council", the UN Summit of the Future and ongoing developments in many countries towards implementing ecological integrity and rights of nature into their legal systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the crucial role of higher education governing boards in promoting equitable student success, emphasizing the need for intentional support and guidance to navigate complex challenges. Topics include the reorientation of governing boards to understand their role in advancing the public good, fiduciary duty of boards to ensure equitable student success, and demarcating specific responsibilities of boards in advancing equity in decision-making processes within institutions.

A crucial requirement for firms to remain competitive is to consistently and simultaneously engage in exploratory and exploitative activities. The academic literature has broadly accepted that the development of dynamic capabilities (ie firms' abilities to create, reconfigure and improve resources and capabilities to fit their changing environments) are vital to meeting this competitive requirement. Research has predominately addressed these dynamic capabilities from a management perspective. Little attention has been paid to the influence of the board of directors on these firm capabilities even though boards hold the fiduciary responsibility for the corporation and its long-term viability. Even less has been written on how boards ought to organise themselves and develop their dynamic board capabilities to support and govern corporate renewal and performance effectively. This paper aims to start addressing this gap by using two related aims. First, a process framework for board behaviours is proposed that ensures, and supports, a systematic way of building and developing corporate-level dynamic capabilities. Then, evidence is presented and reviewed from a survey of two board member communities which supports the idea that board capabilities are essential for a firm's successful renewal and economic performance, and need to be improved in practice. This framework is closely aligned with well-established components identified by the management literature but differs in having the board as the unit of analysis. A crucial question and action agenda is proposed for boards eager to acquire and develop their dynamic capabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The provided text details North Carolina's anti-ESG (environmental, social, and governance) law and the fiduciary responsibilities of the State Treasurer.

Brazil is South America's leading domicile for listed public companies and has enjoyed substantial economic growth in the last generation. But it remains a nation constrained by limited resources to address all of its challenges and opportunities. Because of this reality, Brazil has chosen to use arbitration as the method to resolve disputes between the stockholders of public companies about critical issues such as the fairness of interested transactions and other claims for breach of fiduciary duty or compliance with statutory law and securities laws. Likewise, important commercial disputes involving public companies are also resolved in arbitration. This is problematic in one hugely important way: Brazil has not yet recognized that arbitration of this kind that affects public companies, their stockholders, and other stakeholders is distinct from purely private arbitration. As a result, the arbitration process for public companies lacks the accountability and integrity that accompanies public adjudication and also fails to create a body of decisional law that provides a basis for the evolution of sound corporate governance best practices and that encourages arbitrators to base their decision on principled and coherent interpretations of commercial, corporate, and securities law. Recognizing that one of the primary reasons Delaware has emerged as an international leader in corporate and commercial law is that its system of adjudication resolves cases promptly, expertly, and publicly, and provides practitioners, academics, regulators, stockholders, corporate leaders, and the public with reasoned decisions about important determinations affecting public companies, we argue that features of Delaware's approach could be usefully employed within Brazil's system of public company arbitration. We thus support and encourage recent reforms in Brazil to open up the system of public company arbitration and provide specific suggestions for making the new movement toward public arbitration in public company cases effective. By capitalizing on the speed and expertise that can be brought to bear by arbitration, but combining it with credibility- and consistency-enhancing features, Brazil can further its ambitions to be an international leader in the market for incorporation and better encourage investment in its economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the agency implications of increased disclosure using a regulatory change in the mutual fund industry as an experimental setting. This quasi-natural experiment mandated more frequent portfolio disclosure, which we show imposes managerial skill-reassessment risks from investors on funds with high relative performance volatility. In turn, this risk translates into greater agency costs to investors. We show that high-volatility funds, relative to low-volatility funds, responded to the increased skill-reassessment risk after regulation with an increase in management fees and a decrease in risk taking. These actions get transmitted to fund investors in the form of inferior net performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the complications trustees encounter in managing family trusts, addressing conflicts of interest, self-dealings, and safeguarding beneficiaries' interests. It mentions strategies such as explicit trust deed provisions and obtaining informed consent to mitigate potential risks, underscoring the importance of proactive measures to prevent conflicts and ensuing legal issues.

Delegation by directors and reliance on third parties is an important practical issue. Directors unlawfully delegating their powers or relying on third parties could face serious consequences, such as liability for breach of fiduciary duties, or even disqualification from acting as directors. Uncertainty over when a director may appropriately delegate to or rely on others could foster an overcautious approach to managing the company's affairs and impede the company's decision-making processes. This article critically analyses the principles of directors' delegation and reliance on third parties under the South African Companies Act 71 of 2008. It contends that these principles lack clarity and are ambiguous. It compares these principles to the equivalent provisions of the Revised Model Business Corporations Act 1984 of the United States of America and the Corporations Act 2001 of Australia and makes recommendations to clarify and improve the law relating to delegation and reliance by company directors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The law of not registering fiduciary creditors has significant consequences for the enforceability and validity of fiduciary guarantees. Based on Law Number 42 of 1999 concerning Fiduciary Guarantees, creditors receiving fiduciaries must be registered as members of the Fiduciary Guarantee Council. Failure to register a fiduciary creditor can give rise to legal problems in terms of executing fiduciary guarantees, because the guarantee cannot be used as evidence or a legal resource. Therefore, efforts need to be made to prevent this from happening and ensure that creditors who receive fiduciaries meet the requirements to be registered as members of the Fiduciary Guarantee Council. This research uses a qualitative data analysis approach to conduct normative legal studies. The main legal sources in this research are primary legal sources. The conclusion of this research is that an unregistered fiduciary agreement has legal consequences, where the creditor does not have a preferred position in the event of bankruptcy and only acts as a concurrent creditor. And if the debtor defaults, the creditor does not have direct executorial rights over the fiduciary collateral, if the debtor is unable to pay off the entire debt at the agreed time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines directors’ accountability for company sales results and commissioners’ actions in asset recovery regarding an embezzlement case involving Conti Chandra, a Director at PT. Bangun Mega Semesta (BMS) in Hotel Batam City Condotel (BCC). Relevant court decisions include Supreme Court Decision No. 567K/PID/2016, Pekanbaru High Court Decision No. 212/Pid.B/2015, and Batam District Court Decision No. 321/Pid.B/2015. It focuses on two main issues: corporate managers’ accountability based on Law No. 40 of 2007 on limited liability companies and criminal liability for “embezzlement crime in position” within a limited liability company. The study uses a normative legal research method with a descriptive approach, relying on secondary data and qualitative analysis. Findings indicate corporate managers’ accountability during general meetings of shareholders. Criminal liability for embezzlement relates to directors’ fiduciary duty to shareholders, requiring prudence, responsibility, and good faith. Two recommendations are proposed: First, The Indonesian government should revise the limited liability company law on holding directors and commissioners accountable for neglecting management and supervision duties and emphasizing fiduciary duty. Second, the Directors of Batam City Condotel should adhere to fiduciary duty principles under the board of commissioners’ supervision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a lecture about the underlying rationale for tracing in equity, a form of tracing where the owner of misapplied property seeks to assert a proprietary remedy over different property. Topics discussed include importance of having an identifiable basis for equitable tracing, consideration that should be given to outcomes in the search for legal principle, and evolution of the precondition for tracing of the presence of an initial fiduciary relationship.

As more U. S. states have begun to pass consumer privacy laws, there are growing calls for federal data privacy regulation to ease the burden of compliance with uarious, sometimes conflicting, state laws. However, scholars and lawmakers are divided on how best to balance robust priuacy protections with privacy laws to which businesses can realistically comply. Two prominent regulatory models haue emerged from scholarly debate. The Rights/Obligations Model grants consumers various rights and imposes obligations on businesses. This model has been trending in U.S. states, which have mirrored language from the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) by "imposing different obligations on data controllers" and "data" processors. However, there are shortcomings to this model that limit consumer rights and their ability to uindicate those rights. The Fiduciary Model has also received attention from lawmakers and scholars as an alternative model of regulation. The Fiduciary Model addresses gaps in the Rights/Obligations Model, but prominent critics have uoiced skepticism about the workability of the Fiduciary Model. This paper 's contributions are threefold. First, this paper examines the distinction between "data controllers" and "data processors" in the GDPR and whether those terms are likely to apply in a functionally similar way in new US. state consumer privacy laws. As companies strategize about how to comply with laws from a multitude of jurisdictions-and as states incorporate identical language into their own lawsunderstanding the similarities and differences between how such laws are applied will be crucial. Second, this puper furthers the debate about the workability of the Fiduciary Model by proposing that "data controllers," as defined in the GDPR and US. state laws, should be considered "data fiduciaries." This definition offers two benefits: (1) defining data fiduciaries as data controllers provides a workable definition that corresponds with fiduciary theory, and (2) harmonizing US. and GDPR law. Finally, this paper will argue that companies subject to state consumer priuacy laws should be considered "data controllers" by default and bear the burden of rebutting this presumption. This presumption reinforces the substantive policy behind consumer privacy law, accounts for the probability that parties violating consumer privacy laws will most likely be data controllers, and allocates the burden to the party with superior access to the euidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the present generation has more ability to shape the future than every previous generation in modern times. Intergenerational justice in general means meeting the current needs without jeopardising future generations; all generations are eligible to a healthy, balanced environment favourable to human progress and the State has fiduciary obligation to use and manage resources efficiently and further promotes balance and sound environmental policy. The synergy between its citizen and State create relationship known as "social contract", but the word "social contract" has a very diverse and unique connotation in Malaysia. The "social contract" referred to the difficulties and intricate compromises reached between major ethnics in Malaysia regarding their mutual rights and privileges, since independence of Malaysia. The Aboriginal in Malaysia is also known as Orang Asli, their communities frequently associated with negative connotation and sometimes less fortunate when compared to other main ethnics in Malaysia. Over the time government regimes change guard but developments of reasonable policies and other actions that promotes intergenerational justice and sustainable development goal towards Orang Asli seem slow in progress. This paper aims to highlight the issues of plight among Orang Asli in Malaysia as they are the minorities within minority communities. In contrast to empirical research, doctrinal approach which is library-based focusing on reading and analysis of the primary and secondary materials will be applied throughout this study. It is the contention of this paper to promote better wellbeing of Orang Asli communities as part of Malaysia nation building. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

794 The article addresses the issue that is widely discussed in Germany and other jurisdictions: can the management of a company use AI applications in its decision-making process without violating its fiduciary duties? The lack of transparency in conventional AI applications conflicts with the fiduciary duty to check the plausibility of external expert advice (in Germany known as the ISION principles). This tension can be partly resolved by using explainable AI (XAI). In this work, we review the basic principles of machine learning and XAI and discuss them in the legal context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The strict obligations governing the conduct of fiduciaries is intended to discourage temptation and encourage fidelity. These objectives potentially lose their force if the remedy has a different emphasis. An account of profits serves a crucial function in disgorging illicit gains. The determination of accountable gains and the amount that must ultimately be disgorged is a phased exercise which does not necessarily reflect the rigour of the duty it enforces. The implications are explored with reference to causation and allowances. The former is consistent with strict fiduciary standards to the extent that unauthorised gains are readily imputed to the breach. The latter is a nuanced exercise in which the relationship between duty and remedy is more tenuous. It is concluded that this is not necessarily inconsistent with the objectives of equity and that each can be explained on a principled basis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses key developments in tax and estate planning in Australia in 2024, focusing on lost trust deeds, loans, gifts, books of account, and significant changes in superannuation and estate planning. Topics include challenges posed by lost trust deeds, principles related to loans, gifts, and books of account in estate planning, and a controversial aspect of superannuation known as "fast death tax."