Author: Simon Hartley (2001)

Simon Hartley sheds new light on a neglected area of a trustee’s duties
(taken from Issue No 15 – April 2001)

In order to explore whether and in what circumstances a legal duty could be said to apply to fiduciaries to exercise voting rights attached to their investments, it is necessary to describe the field and process of enquiry.

The first part of this article will explore the practical issues surrounding the question of any general duty to vote; the second will try to apply standard principles to the practicalities thus identified. Trustees of course have always been subject to what might for shorthand be called the `Bartlett` duty¹ (being a duty to supervise, monitor and participate in control of an enterprise in which the trust has a significant stake). This is an obvious example of the trustee’s general duty of prudent stewardship but there is clearly some overlap with the narrower question of the existence of any duty to vote.