James MacDougald’s article in Trusts & Trustees analyses the recent Privy Council decision in Dawson-Damer v Grampian Trust Company Ltd & anor [2025] UKPC 32 in which he acted successfully for the first respondent trustee. The case considered the application of the so-called rule in Re Hastings-Bass (as reformulated in Pitt v Holt [2013] 2 AC 108) in hostile claims against trustees for inadequate deliberation.
The Board decided that a court will judge the adequacy of a trustee’s deliberations by applying an objective standard of conduct, not by their consequences. To warrant intervention by the court, the trustee’s deliberations must have fallen below that objective standard in a manner sufficiently serious to constitute a breach of fiduciary duty. Only if a breach is proven will the court consider whether in its discretion it should set aside the impugned decision. In doing so the court will consider whether, absent the breach, the trustee “would not” or “might not” have acted as it did. The Board emphasised the need to differentiate between the two stages: breach of fiduciary duty and the consequences of that breach.
James’s article can be read in full here.
