Challenging Trustees' Decisions - What You Need to Know

Introduction

Having considered the duty of trustees to exercise their dispositive powers for the proper purpose in Grand View PTC Ltd v Wong, in Dawson-Damer v Grampian Trust Co Ltd, the Privy Council considered the duty of due deliberation that trustees are under when they exercise their powers and correspondingly what a beneficiary can target as a breach of duty in an attempt to set their decision aside.

This is of particular concern to beneficiaries of a discretionary trust when their trustees exercised the dispositive powers conferred on them by the settlor of the trust to decide which of the beneficiaries in the discretionary class will benefit from the trust fund and in what shares.

Trustees have traditionally had the protection long established in cases such as Re Beloved Wilkes’ Charity that they are not accountable to their beneficiaries for discretionary decisions made in good faith.

This webinar will examine whether and how far that protection has now been eroded such that beneficiaries may be able to successfully challenge trustees' decisions as to the disposition of the trust fund among them.

What You Will Learn

This webinar will cover the following:

• Trustees' duties to be aware of their powers and consider their exercise
• How often trustees should consider exercising the powers
• The duty actively to exercise their discretion, not follow orders
• The duty to act within the terms of the power
• The duty to exercise the power for its proper purpose
• The duty of adequate deliberation - what is involved?
• Good faith, responsibility, and rationality
• Information as to relevant considerations - how far must they go?
• Causation - would they have acted differently, or might they?

This pre-recorded webinar will be available to view from Thursday 24th September 2026

Alternatively, you can gain access to this webinar and 2,300+ others via the MBL Webinar Subscription. Please email webinarsubscription@mblseminars.com for more details.