Review of 'Fiduciary Duties: Directors and Employees': Andrew Stafford QC and Stuart Ritchie, Jordan Publishing Ltd

In their recent book 'Fiduciary Duties: Directors and Employees', Andrew Stafford QC and Stuart Ritchie engage in an extended analysis of the scope of fiduciary duties owed by directors and employees and the remedies available when there is a breach of those duties. The topic is an important one but it is one that tends to fall outside the purview of writing on both fiduciary duties and employment law, at least where the writing is aimed at practitioners and/or students. Academics writing about fiduciary duties regard the trustee as the paradigm fiduciary. They certainly discuss cases where the fiduciary was a director or even an employee, but the inter-relationship between employment law and equity is not explored in any detail. At the same time, a brief survey of chapter headings in employment law texts reveals that equitable remedies such as account of profit or constructive trust, and the potential liability of third parties for knowing receipt of trust property or dishonest assistance in a breach of trust has no place in student and practitioner focussed texts. Where remedies are discussed, they tend to be remedies available to the employee rather than the employer, and the focus is very much on lower-level employees, not those at director or senior management level. Yet Human Resources Departments will have to deal with employees across the board. This book seeks to fill that gap.