England's dreaming equity, trust and conscience - alastairhudson.com

of equity. 12 And yet, the law of trusts, which is a part of equity, is a marriage ofthe general notion of “conscience” with detailed rules as to the creation,management and remedy for the breach of trusts. For trusts lawyers, thenotion of conscience is not a vague notion – for all that it may sound like thatin the abstract – but rather it is a concept which operates in a nuanced way indifferent types of circumstance. So, the idea that a trustee must act in goodconscience in relation to property which is held on trust is a notion whichunderpins the imposition of trusts de novo as well as the nature of thetrustee’s obligations once a trust has come into existence. And so technicalrules as to certainty of subject matter in trusts law co-habit in the textbookswith the imposition of constructive trusts to prevent conflicts of interest –where that constructive trust is operating so as to prevent unconscionablebenefit being taken from the trustee’s position. Within the law on constructivetrusts – to select the most obvious example of “conscience” at work in Englishtrusts law – it is clear that the courts are concerned to avoid conflicts ofinterest in relation to fiduciaries dealing on their own account with trustproperty 13 and are concerned with the prevention of the corruption offiduciaries in relation to bribes: 14 but in both situations the underling notion of“conscience” can be understood as applying equally to both so as to imposeproprietary constructive trusts over any property received by thosefiduciaries. 15 Thus the concept “conscience” has become flexible enough, andwell enough understood by English jurists, to apply in those and many otherspecific contexts while still being predicated on a large underlying principle. 16In a similar vein, the notion of “integrity” and the other FSA Principles forBusinesses in finance law will therefore have to be understood as applying insubtly different ways in different contexts too but always based on the samefundamental principle. 173-99 The law of finance will have to develop and understand how “integrity”,for example, operates across the whole of the law of finance. It is suggestedthat the sense of “integrity” is to be found in the obligation to obey the rulescontained in the FSA rulebooks as well as to comply with the spirit of therulebooks as contained in its guidance notes and other Principles forBusinesses. Thus, seeking to take advantage of loose drafting of a rule oracting in contrary to a guidance note (but not a rule) may be considered to beexamples of behaviour without “integrity”. The standard of “integrity” shouldalso, it is suggested, require compliance with the substantive law such thatany breach of a requirement of “reasonableness” or “good conscience” or“honesty” in English, Scots or Northern Irish law, as applicable, should betaken automatically to constitute behaviour which does not display integrity.Clearly, fraud – whether active deceit or undue influence of clients orrecklessly making misleading statements or otherwise – could not constituteacting with integrity. One cannot be said to have acted with integrity if one hasacted fraudulently, in its colloquial sense. What is suggested here is that lack12 See AS Hudson, Equity & Trusts (Routledge Cavendish, 5 th edition, 2007), section 1.1 and 32.2; Earlof Oxford’s Case (1615) 1 Ch Rep 1; Westdeutsche Landesbank v Islington [1996] 1 AC 669.13 E.g. Bray v Ford [1896] A.C. 44; Boardman v Phipps [1967] 2 A.C. 46.14 Attorney-General for Hong Kong v Reid [1994] 1 A.C. 324; Daraydan Holdings Ltd v SollandInternational [2004] 3 W.L.R. 1106.15 See Westdeutsche Landesbank v Islington [1996] 1 AC 669.16 For an analysis of this issue see AS Hudson, Equity & Trusts (Routledge Cavendish, 5 th ed., 2007),562, and the detailed discussion of the various forms of constructive trust in the preceding Chapter 12of that book.17 See AS Hudson, The Law of Finance (Sweet & Maxwell, 2008).30www.alastairhudson.com | © professor alastair hudson