ABSTRACT
Fiduciary relationships are central to many activities in the financial sector, where professionals are put in positions of trust, wielding power over the financial affairs of clients and beneficiaries. The most developed, unified and cross-jurisdictionally consistent common law framework for financial fiduciaries is to be found in the US, where fiduciary duties are defined through statute and cases under both state and federal law. The UNEP-FI report indicates three grounds on which even conventional funds ought to consider ESG issues, and therefore upon which Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) funds are at a clear advantage in terms of answering to their fiduciary duties. Fiduciary duties evolve over time according to changes in social norms and the values of society and, to a degree, technological and market changes. The fiduciary relationship generates a set of basic obligations or duties both in the legal and ethical sense specific to the financial sector, which limits the discretionary power of fiduciaries over investment decision-making.
