Book Description

This volume brings together three separate works written by Paul Finn over nearly 40 years. The first, Fiduciary Obligations, was published in 1977. It has been out of print for many years, though it is still widely cited both in judicial decisions in common law countries and in international scholarship on fiduciary law. It has been regarded widely as a 'seminal' or 'classic' piece. Its publication preceded two important developments. The first was the High Court of Australia's systematic reappraisal of equity jurisprudence in the 1980s. This contributed significantly to the shaping and future direction of modern fiduciary law in Australia. The second was the growth in civil litigation in common law countries against banks, advisers in many guises, commercial 'agents', franchisees, joint venturers and other commercial actors which raised issues as to the extent to which, if at all, functions they performed for customers, etc, could attract strict fiduciary standards of conduct or merely those lesser standards otherwise imposed by the common law or equity.These two developments inform the second work in the volume, "The Fiduciary Principle", which was published in Canada in 1989, but is relatively unknown in Australia. Though its scope was limited designedly to those standards of conduct the fiduciary principle imposed on private law fiduciaries, it indicated when, and to what extent, a person or body would be a 'fiduciary' for the purposes of those standards. It accepted that, while 'fiduciary' could not be defined, it could be described. That description, founded on a 'legitimate expectation' test, is commonly used both in Australia and elsewhere.The third piece, "Fiduciary Reflections" was published in 2014 and contains the author's personal reflections on the course of Australian fiduciary law since the publication of Fiduciary Obligations. It suggests that, despite the clear signposts for the future development of fiduciary law given by the High Court in the 1980s, recent decisions of subordinate Australian courts seem to be heading, unnecessarily, in the opposite direction. Now at risk are the coherence of fiduciary law and its rationale.* Click here for information on our title Finn's Law: An Australian Justice edited by Tim Bonyhady.From the Book Launch Fiduciary Obligations and Finn's Law, address by The Hon Keith Mason AC QC, 9 February 2017..."Fiduciary Obligations comes with a modern Introductory Comment by Paul himself, a Preface by Sir Anthony Mason, and the reproduction of two of Paul's many extra-judicial contributions on the topic. These are an article on The Fiduciary Principle that first appeared in 1989 and another, called Fiduciary Reflections, that was published in 2014. The latter tracks developments in Paul's thinking and scholarship on this topic over the past 40 years as well as its reception into law. ... Together, these two books will enable the discerning academic or practitioner to survey large swathes of law. The eminence of the various contributors allows us to be sure that we are shown where the law has come from, where it is going, and where the law in Australia is converging or diverging from that of overseas. Each book shows what vast strides have been made in the coherent understanding of legal and equitable principles, the magnetic interplay between statutory and judge-made law, and the convergence of public and private law discourse that has taken place in the 46 years since Paul Finn first slipped shyly into postgraduate studies at London University." Read Launch Speech...