The Supervisory Jurisdiction Over Trust Administration

FRESH RESEARCH AND CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVES ON TRUST ADMINISTRATION An appreciation by Elizabeth Robson Taylor of Richmond Green Chambers and Phillip Taylor MBE, Head of Chambers and Reviews Editor, "The Barrister" Lawyers - Counsel especially - embroiled in the vicissitudes of trust administration will welcome the publication of this new and certainly erudite legal text by Dr. Daniel Clarry published recently by the Oxford University Press (OUP). The book is a tour de force of scholarship and insightful analysis of a particular aspect of the administration of trusts that has, oddly enough, remained under-reported, you might say — or at least not extensively or formally commented upon for over a hundred years at least. If this sounds curiously odd, or oddly curious, it is.

'It appears', says Dr. Clarry that 'no one had really tackled the administrative jurisdiction of the Court over trusts in modern times, even though it is a matter of day to day practice in the courts,' adding that 'one is hard-pressed to find any systematic account of the underlying jurisdiction itself'.

He also refers to 'the various ways in which the Court acts to facilitate the performance of trusts as constituent parts of a coherent whole, herein named the supervisory jurisdiction over trust administration' … and so forth. It appears that practitioners advising on trusts and therefore seeking advice from the courts is an occurrence that is so commonplace and routine that it has perhaps been overlooked as a topic crying out from extensive and detailed research, which this book certainly provides. The extent and depth of said research is worth commenting upon, however briefly, as much of it has been carried out under the auspices of, or within the precincts of, some of the world's foremost academic institutions; the University of Cambridge, for example and the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law.

Dr. Clary has also been awarded fellowships at Harvard Law School and the London School of Economics and Political Science (to give it its full title) which supported the publication of this book and related research. The core principle around which the book is organised is that of performance, supported by in-depth analysis, basically, of how the Court in its supervisory capacity acts in various ways to facilitate the performance of trusts in modern times.

It is fair to say, therefore, that the book offers a refreshingly modern perspective on a hitherto largely under-researched area of law which trust practitioners will find both thought-provoking and useful, particularly the commentaries on trust law, public law and private law.

This is a distinguished monograph that will certainly pique the interest of academics as well as practitioners tasked, for example, with advising private clients.

The date of publication is cited as at 26th December 2018.