The dilution of the trust

Trust-like arrangements are appearing in civil law jurisdictions at an increasing rate. Two or three decades ago, such a development would have been unthinkable. But few, if any, of the new arrangements are true trusts, that is, trusts as the common lawyer would recognize them. These civilian arrangements are diluting the trust. For example, the Draft EU Directive on Protected Funds, which appeared in 2009, does not authorize the trust but rather what we might the “trust-lite.” This paper considers some reasons for the spread of these trust-like devices and discusses possible implications for common-law trusts.