Soton Equity and Trusts - alastairhudson.com

purpose of blocking the house up and instead allowing the named beneficiary to take the house during
the twenty years.)
3) Challenges to beneficiary principle: is the beneficiary principle necessary for the modern
trust?
Reading: Hudson, paras 4.2.8 and 21.2.3
**Langbein, “The contractarian basis of the law of trusts” (1995) 105 Yale Law
Journal 625.
**Hayton, “Developing the obligation characteristic of the trust” (2001) 117 LQR
96.
Hudson, section 21.2
4) A politics of trusts law
Reading: Hudson, para 2.7.3
(a) The attitude to tax avoidance
John Galsworthy, The Man of Property, (Book 1 of The Forsyte Saga, Vol 1 of The
Forsyte Chronicles: originally published by William Heineman, 1906; republished
in Penguin Classics, 2001), p.12:
‘… no Forsyte had as yet died; they did not die; death being contrary to
their principles, they took precautions against it, the instinctive precautions
of highly vitalized persons who resent encroachments on their property.’
(b) Asset protection trusts and tax havens
Alastair Hudson, “Asset Protection Trusts”, in International Trusts Law, ed. D
Hayton (Jordans, 2011), Chapter 6.
Jurisdictions without the beneficiary principle as part of their trusts law: this enables
investment of one’s assets without ownership for tax purposes.
The use of “protector” or “enforcer” in place of the beneficiary.
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (“OECD”) used four
criteria to identify a “tax haven” (Towards Global Tax Co-operation 2010, OECD
Publishing, 2010):
o Levying of no taxes or only nominal taxes.
o A lack of transparency so as to prevent the open and consistent
implementation of tax laws and the preparation of appropriate accounting
information.
o The absence of laws or administrative practices which prevent the giving of
relevant information to other governments or supra-national bodies.
o The absence of any substantial activities being carried on in the tax haven
itself by entities which have the protection of that jurisdiction’s laws.
The problem of the “limping trust”.
(c)
The impact of international investment trusts on real people: the ethics of
international trusts law
Ashley Seager and James Lewis, ‘How top London law firms help vulture funds
devour their prey’, The Guardian, 17 October 2007.
‘Make UK more like a tax haven – Tory treasurer’, front page – The Guardian, 21
September 2012
29