Innovation and Reform in the Law of Trusts Editors’ Introduction

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Notes

1 His Majesty’s Revenue & Customs, Statistics on trusts in the UK, 12 October 2023 https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/trust-statistics/statistics-on-trusts-in-the-uk-october-2022 [sic - the link to the 2023 data retains the 2022 date]. The trust registration scheme extends across England & Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. There was an increase of 462,000 new registrations between 1 April 2002 and 31 March 2023. For analysis of the registration scheme, see L Brown, ‘Registering express trusts: a necessary clarification or step too far?’ (2022) 28 Trusts & Trustees 664 and E Virgo, ‘Trust Registers and Transparency: A Step too Far?’ (2019) 33 Trust Law International 95.

2 Statistics on trusts in the UK 2003 (n 1).

3 See, for example, the various stories generated by the work of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and media partners in three sets of leaks – known as the Panama Papers, Paradise Papers, and Pandora Papers: Australian Broadcasting Corporation, ‘Pandora, Paradise and Panama Papers: Offshore structures exposed by leaks explained’ https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-05/offshore-companies-trusts-tax-and-secrecy-explained/100514250; J Gould, ‘Too late to close the box?’ (2021) 171 New Law Journal 7. More recently still, the UK Government has announced plans for greater transparency over ‘who owns land trusts’ [sic]: Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, ‘Government to crack down on corruption in the property sector’ https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-to-crack-down-on-corruption-in-the-property-sector.

4 New Zealand Law Commission, R130 Review of the Law of Trusts: A Trusts Act for New Zealand (2013); G McLay, ‘How to read New Zealand’s new Trusts Act 2019’ (2020) 13 Journal of Equity 325; J Palmer, ‘The Trusts Law Legislation Project in New Zealand’ in YK Liew and Y-C Wu (eds), Asia-Pacific Trusts Law: volume 2 – Adaptation in Context (Hart, 2022); and L Clover Alcolea, ‘“Reform, Reform: Aren’t things bad enough already?”: The case of the Trusts Act 2019’ (2023) 17 Journal of Equity 93.

5 The Bill passed stage 3, unanimously on 20 December 2023; for commentary, see D Carr, ‘A new role for the Scottish courts under a reformed trust law’ (2023) 27 Edinburgh Law Review 403.)

6 Scottish Law Commission, Report on Trust Law (SLC No 239, 2014).

7 Report on the Enactment of Non-Charitable Purpose Trusts (Singapore: Singapore Academy of Law, 2021).

8 Law Commission, ‘Announcement of 13^th Programme of Law Reform’ www.lawcom.gov.uk/project/13th-programme-of-law-reform/.

9 Law Commission, Thirteenth Programme of Law Reform (2017), para. 2.24.

10 ‘Global Britain’, edited by Professors Federico Ortino and Keith Ewing (2023) 34(1) King’s Law Journal 1–187.

11 Law Com 375, Technical Issues in Charity Law (2017).

12 [2022] HCA 34.

13 Equity Trust (Jersey) Ltd v Halabi [2022] UKPC 36; [2023] AC 877.

14 See eg Lionel Smith, ‘Massively Discretionary Trusts’ (2017) 70 Current Legal Problems 17 and Hanoch Dagan & Irit Samet, ‘What’s Wrong with Massively Discretionary Trusts’ (2023) 138 Law Quarterly Review 624.