Article on the Legal Obligation of Loyalty

Lionel Smith (McGill University – Faculty of Law – Paul-AndréCrépeau Centre for Private and Comparative Law) recentlypublished an article entitled, Can We BeObliged to Be Selfless?, A. Gold and P. Miller, eds., PhilosophicalFoundations of Fiduciary Law, Oxford University Press, 2014.  Provided below isthe abstract from SSRN:

It is generally agreed that fiduciary law is concerned with obligationsthat relate in some way to loyalty. The usual understanding is that there issomething called a duty of loyalty. This paper explores the question whetherthere is a legal obligation of loyalty; and if so, what does it require? Myargument is that the duty of loyalty is not a duty in the strict sense, thatcorresponds to a claim-right held by another person. Instead, the lawincorporates a requirement of loyalty into the way in which the fiduciaryexercises her discretionary powers. If they are exercised disloyally, theexercise can be set aside retroactively. This understanding helps us to makesense of the structure of fiduciary law, including the relationships betweenand among the requirement of loyalty, the no-conflict rules, and the no-profitrule.