Business Trusts

Associate Professor of Law Robert Sitkoff of the Northwestern University School of Law has recently authored an innovative article entitled Trust as “Uncorporation”: A Research Agenda, 2005 Ill. L. Rev. 31.

Here is the abstract of this article:

Trust has long been a competitor of corporation as a form of business organization.  Though corporation today dominates trust for operating enterprises, trust dominates corporation in certain specialized niches.  These niches measure in the trillions of dollars.  Yet the modern business trust has not been subjected to systematic scholarly inquiry.  Accordingly, this essay outlines a research agenda for the study of the trust—in particular, the modern statutory business trust—as a form of business organization.  Put into the parlance of the conference on which this symposium issue is based, this essay is a call for research on the business trust as “uncorporation.”