BU to host conference on fiduciary duties

Fiduciary duties are imposed by law, but their scope is defined by contract.  The border between duties assumed by agreement and those imposed by law can get fuzzy.  Few legal writers have spent more time exploring the concept of trust — the basis for fiduciary duties — than Boston University’s Tamar Frankel (left).  BU will host a conference “inspired by” her work, “The Role of Fiduciary Law and Trust in the 21st Century.”  It takes place this Friday (October 29, 2010).  Here’s the description:

Fiduciary law is designed to encourage people to rely on experts and other fiduciaries, to facilitate fair and efficient terms of those relationships, and to prevent (and provide remedies for) abuse of power entrusted to the fiduciary.  This Conference highlights the nature and scope of fiduciary law, and its relationship to other legal doctrines and categories.  It considers how fiduciary law can be illuminated by viewing it through the lens of such disciplines as economics, psychology, history, political science, and philosophy.  It also investigates current debates about recognizing fiduciary duties in the determination of executive compensation, in the prohibition of insider trading under the federal securities laws, in the largely unregulated world of securities and mortgage broker-dealers, and in modern capital structure and governance.  It further explores the relevance of fiduciary law principles to the abuse of power by public officials and to other issues of democratic legitimacy, as well as the relevance of constraints on political power to the duties of private actors.

Panelists include Margaret Brinig (Notre Dame), Deborah DeMott (Duke), Alan Feld (Boston U.), Joshua Getzler (Oxford), Wendy Gordon (Boston U.), Richard Holton (MIT–Philosophy), Laurence Kotlikoff (Boston U.-Economics), Arthur Laby (Rutgers-Camden), Donald Langevoort (Georgetown), Ethan Leib (UC-Hastings), Donna Nagy (Indiana-Bloomington), Kevin Outterson (Boston U.), James Post (Boston U.-Management), Larry Ribstein (Illinois), David Seipp (Boston U.), Kenneth W. Simons, (Boston U.), Eric Sirri (Babson-Finance), Robert Sitkoff (Harvard), Frederick Tung (Boston U.), Cheryl Wade (St. John’s), David Walker (Boston U.), and Charles Whitehead (Cornell).

FGS