Ethics, Fiduciary Duty, Breach of Duty

When Hostilities Break Out Between Co-trustees, Where Does That Leave Trust Counsel?

Charles E. Rounds, Jr. - Suffolk University... on 3/11/2025

When hostilities break out between individual co-trustees, incumbent trust counsel faces a representation conundrum. In §8.8 of Loring and Rounds: A Trustee’s Handbook (2025), see appendix below, we grapple with the...more

Sour Grapes: Attorney’s Oral Agreement Might Be Okay if Fair, Just, and Fully Advised

McDermott Will & Schulte on 2/28/2025

The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit found that a district court erred in declaring on summary judgment that an attorney had no ownership interest in a winery because the alleged agreement was made orally. The Ninth...more

Texas Supreme Court Clarifies Limits on Business Fiduciary Duties

Jackson Walker on 2/27/2025

On February 21, 2025, the Supreme Court of Texas delivered a significant ruling in the case of Pitts v. Rivas, addressing the issue of fiduciary duties within professional relationships. The Court concluded that no fiduciary...more

Delaware Court Increases Scrutiny of Corporate Board Oversight and Monitoring of Compliance Programs

The Volkov Law Group on 10/22/2019

On October 1, 2019, in In re Clovis Oncology, Inc. Derivative Litigation, a Delaware Chancery Court denied a motion to dismiss the plaintiffs’ claims under the Caremark decision against individual directors for failing to...more

Board Members Should Take Note — Delaware Supreme Court Issues Important Decision on Caremark Compliance Standard

The Volkov Law Group on 8/7/2019

I have long predicted that corporate board members are in for a rude awakening. Corporate boards have to improve their ability and knowledge surrounding supervision and monitoring of a company’s ethics and compliance...more

The Velvet Hammer: Undue Influence Based On Deceit, Fraud, and Relationship Poisoning and a Financial Institution’s Duty To Report...

Winstead PC on 3/21/2019

The normal view of undue influence involves an actor threatening an elderly or infirm person into signing a document that he or she otherwise would not sign. One imagines the actor having control over the person and threating...more