Fiduciary Duty Quotes

The things that are done in the name of the shareholder are, to me, as terrifying as the things that are done - dare I say it - in the name of God.

The administration of government, like a guardianship ought to be directed to the good of those who confer, not to those who receive the trust.

I cannot and will not violate my duty to protect confidential communications with the president.

What we need is congressional action to establish a federal principle of fiduciary duty - encapsulated by the phrase 'no man can serve two masters.'

I believe Washington should be a more active participant focusing on the issue of why corporate shareholders and mutual fund shareholders are not given fair treatment by corporate management and mutual fund management. We need to develop a national standard of fiduciary duty to ensure that these agents, if you will, are adequately representing the principles - pension beneficiaries and mutual fund shareholders - whom they are duty bound to serve.

I couldn't do that as attorney general. Why? Because they are my clients. You can't say they're not doing what they ought to be doing when you are the attorney general.

We must work to establish a 'fiduciary society,' where manager/agents entrusted with managing other people's money are required - by federal statute - to place front and center the interests of the owners they are duty-bound to serve.

A fiduciary standard means, basically, put the interests of the client first. No excuses. Period.

At the heart of Erisa is the requirement that plan fiduciaries act with an 'eye single' to funding the retirements of plan participants and beneficiaries. This means investment decisions must be based solely on whether they enhance retirement savings, regardless of the fiduciary's personal preferences.

There's a myth out there that you have to genuflect at the altar of quarterly earnings. But it's a false choice that you can either be a good fiduciary or promote values such as environmental sustainability.

The role of a trustee is to ensure beneficiaries get the best returns, without the trustee benefitting.

He who receives money in trust to administer for the benefit of its owner, and uses it either for his own interest or against the wishes of its rightful owner, is a thief.

When I run a business, and I run a business, if I don't take advantage of the five deductions that are available to me, even if you think those deductions are unfair, then I've violated my fiduciary duty.

When I trade, I don't have an agency problem; I have my neck on the line. When a bank or banker trades, it's not his neck on the line.

Women, you have all this power, I'm telling you. In business, you have something called an inferred fiduciary duty to yourself. Look at the other hugely successful women in industry, commerce, science and everywhere else and you'll see women who are feminine, beautiful but also do not rely on men for their self-empowerment.

The only beef Enron employees have with top management is that management did not inform employees of the collapse in time to allow them to get in on the swindle. If Enron executives had shouted, "Head for the hills!" the employees might have had time to sucker other Americans into buying wildly over-inflated Enron stock. Just because your boss is a criminal doesn't make you a hero.

A director who gets $150,000 per year from a company and needs the money is not independent.

My rather puritanical view is that any investment manager, whether operating as broker, investment counselor of a trust department, investment company, etc., should be willing to state unequivocally what he is going to attempt to accomplish and how he proposes to measure the extent to which he gets the job done.

Ownership has been separated from control; and this separation has removed many of the checks which formerly operated to curb the misuse of wealth and power.

In April, I asked my staff to determine if Senate rules and relevant laws would allow me to direct the trustees to sell any remaining HCA stock. In May, my staff worked with outside counsel and with the Senate ethics committee staff to draft a written communication to the trustees. After obtaining pre-approval by mid-June from the Senate ethics committee, I issued a letter directing my trustees to sell any remaining HCA stock in my family's trust.

If one has been blessed or have been fortunate enough to have got much more than normal wealth, it is but natural that one expects a certain fiduciary responsibility in terms of how that wealth is applied, used and leveraged for purposes of society.

I believe that the officers, and, especially, the directors, of corporations should be held personally responsible when any corporation breaks the law.

Left-wing shareholder activists seek to leverage the mass economic power of institutional investors such as pension funds, whose managers are supposed to focus strictly on their fiduciary responsibilities to retirees.

I think we have to take a look at corporate law. We have to take a look at the incentives that we can perhaps use to encourage more longer term.