Fiduciary Duties and Responsibilities of Portfolio Managers

The rules governing persons occupying a fiduciary role form a dynamic area of law. With deep historical roots, fiduciary relations have expanded beyond the established categories such as trust-beneficiary, agent-principal, or director-corporation to include any person who has power or discretion over another's interests, coupled with an express or implied undertaking to act exclusively in the other's service. Managers of investment portfolios may be subject to fiduciary law's strict requirements in various capacities such as trustees, agents, financial advisers, or corporate directors. Although the default fiduciary rules are strict, courts and legislators have proved willing to take into account commercial realities and relax the standard prohibitions of conflict of interest by imposing lower benchmarks or by allowing parties to a fiduciary relation to contract out the proscriptive rules.