STEP: Hastings-Bass rule, which gets trustees off the hook, vastly restricted by Supreme Court

The cases are entirely separate but turned on the same issue ‒ namely, under what circumstances a court can void a decision made by a trustee who acted on professional advice

The UK Supreme Court (UKSC) has disallowed the use of the Hastings-Bass rule to unwind trustees’ mistakes in the key Pitt and Futter cases.

The cases are entirely separate but turned on the same issue ‒ namely, under what circumstances a court can void a decision made by a trustee who acted on professional advice. Traditionally, the Hastings-Bass rule has given the courts very wide scope to do this, and it has been much used by trustees to unwind their actions when they led to an adverse outcome, usually tax-related.