Jessel MR said: ‘Again, directors are called trustees. They are no doubt trustees of assets which have come into their hands, or which are under their control, but they are not trustees of a debt due to the company. The company is the creditor, and, as I said before, they are only the managing partners. In my opinion it is extravagant to call them trustees of a debt when it has not been received. You may of course have an actual trust of a debt, as in the case I put before, where trustees have assigned to them a debt to get in, but that is not the case with directors of a company. A director is the managing partner of the concern, and although a debt is due to the concern I do not think it is right to call him a trustee of that debt which remains unpaid, though his liability in respect of it may in certain cases and in some respects be analogous to the liability of a trustee.’
Judges:
Jessel MR
Citations:
(1878) LR 10 Ch 450
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Ultraframe (UK) Ltd v Fielding and others ChD 27-Jul-2005
The parties had engaged in a bitter 95 day trial in which allegations of forgery, theft, false accounting, blackmail and arson. A company owning patents and other rights had become insolvent, and the real concern was the destination and ownership of . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Company
Updated: 07 December 2022; Ref: scu.230267