Complex Commercial Litigation
Business Torts
Fiduciary duties arise from relationships of trust and confidence, including those of partners, corporate officers and directors, agents, trustees, and attorneys. Core obligations are loyalty, care, and disclosure.
Remedies extend beyond compensatory damages to disgorgement of profits, constructive trust, and fee forfeiture.
Alternative Names:
Fiduciary Breach, Breach of Trust
Why it Matters?
The equitable remedies are what make these claims valuable, since disgorgement measures the defendant's gain rather than the plaintiff's loss and can substantially exceed contract damages. Establishing that a fiduciary relationship existed is the threshold fight, because ordinary commercial counterparties dealing at arm's length owe no fiduciary duties regardless of how much trust one party placed in the other.
Frequently Confused with
Related terms
Frequently asked questions
Do commercial counterparties owe fiduciary duties?
What remedies are available?
