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Trusts for Company and Commercial Lawyers 2015 - Online CPD

Description

Package includes:

Online CPD Module  l  Booklet  l  PowerPoint Presentation

Package Fee (incl GST)

  • $205 - NZLS members and Associate members
  • $255 - Non-members

Note: Access to the online files is via your "My CPD" page. If you would like to purchase multiple packages, please contact us here.

Online CPD Module

Presentation time: 120 minutes

With general discussion around trusts focused on discretionary family trusts, there is a need for greater understanding of the fundamental issues of how trusts interact with the commercial world, how trusts can be utilised as an effective tool within commercial practice and how to deal with conflict relating to trusts.

This seminar addresses “the good, the bad and the ugly” of trusts within a commercial context. If you are a commercial or corporate lawyer, what are the issues you need to look out for? What are the pitfalls? And when do you need to get more expert help?

Fundamental issues will be canvassed, principles emerging from case law and the impact of reform discussed.

Topics include:

  • Fundamentals of trust, principles, parties and types of interests
  • Trustee duties
  • Beneficiaries rights to information
  • Trusts as an effective tool – provisions in a standard modern discretionary trust deed
  • Corporate and commercial issues – trusts owning companies and trustee companies, liabilities, duties and indemnities
  • Insolvency – insolvency and creditor issues, reducing the risks in lending to a trust
  • Directors duties of a corporate trustee
  • Dealing with conflict relating to a trust – trustee disputes, trustees removal and relief
  • Issues that arise in relation to a trust as a closely held commercial entity – investment duties and disclosure of information
  • Attacks on trusts.

Please contact us if you use a dial up internet connection.

Learning objectives

You will gain a better understanding of:

  • Property rights and interests within a trust
  • Trustees duties
  • How to advise parties dealing with a trust – such as creditors, directors and beneficiaries.

Booklet

​Authors: Juliet Moses, Jared Ormsby
Published: 18 March 2015
Pages: 87

Introduction

As well as top rugby players, sheep and DIYers, New Zealand is thought to have the most number of family trusts per capita of anywhere in the world. As such, they are an integral and very significant part of the fabric of our economy and society, let alone our legal industry.

Therefore, for any lawyer, it is imperative to have an understanding of the fundamentals of a family trust – what it is, settlors and beneficiaries and their rights, the duties and powers of a trustee, what can be expected of a standard trust deed, and dealing with trust disputes.

It is also incumbent upon company and commercial lawyers to have an understanding of how their area of practice may be affected by trusts, and conversely the impact that their area of practice can have upon trusts. Traditionally, a trust has been considered to be a mechanism for the preservation and conservation of property for the benefit of the objects of the settlor’s bounty (the beneficiaries). However, in recent decades, the trust has become increasingly used as a structure through which commercial enterprise and risktaking is undertaken. The law has not kept pace with these developments in many respects, which can make the job of a company or commercial lawyer much harder when that job involves trusts.

One particularly thorny set of issues relates to insolvent trusts and the enforcement of creditors’ rights and remedies. There is also a very unique and specific set of legal issues that is attributable to the interplay and tension between trust law and company law – either when a company is a trustee, or when a trustee owns a company. Professor H A J Ford, a renowned Australian trust jurist once famously described the “fruit of this union of the law of trusts and the law of limited liability companies [as] a commercial monstrosity.”1

The purpose of this seminar is not to turn you into a trust specialist, but to assist you to perform your job more effectively as a company or commercial lawyer. Hopefully you will gain an understanding of what issues to look out for, how to mitigate risks and maximise opportunities, and when to seek specialist advice.


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1 Ford, Trading Trusts and Creditors’ Rights (1981) 13 Melb U L Rev 89 1.

PowerPoint Presentation

These are the slides included in the presentation.
Number of Slides: 58
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