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영어

The Bishop Estate is one of the largest charitable trusts in the world. It was founded in 1884 by the Will of Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop, the great-granddaughter of Kamehameha the Great. The main purpose of the Estate was to establish and to operate the Kamehameha School for the benefit of Hawaiian natives. The enormous wealth of the Estate and unbridled power bestowed upon five trustees, however, gave rise to the tragic mismanagement of the trust. Following “Broken Trust”, a contribution to the local newspaper by five Hawaiian opinion leaders, the probe into the trust by the special master and the IRS revealed ‘the world record for breaches of trust.’ This paper deals with legal issues raised in the Bishop Estate scandal and attempts to get some insights on fiduciary law and trust administration. After a brief introduction to historical backgrounds of the scandal (chapter II), it starts with the aspect of duty of loyalty (chapter III). One trustee invested his own fund into the methane gas development project, in which the Bishop Estate was already involved. The trustee, facing the financial trouble of the project, made further investment by the Estate but the project was terminated in fiasco. Such ‘co-investment’ should not be allowed under the duty of loyalty. Also this paper deals with ‘limited board removal’ of trustees following the litigation against the trust based upon wrongdoing by trustees. Chapter IV concerns the duty of care. With tremendous assets of the Bishop Estate, the trustees frequently made wrong investment decisions. They failed to prepare reasonable long-term investment plan and establish well-organized investment portfolio, which caused huge losses to the Estate. Chapter V deals with co-trustees and the trust counsel issues. Five trustees of the Bishop Estate divided the function of trustees into five fields and a lead trustee of each field were exclusively responsible for his/her area. The separation, however, was against the intention of Princess Bishop as well as the doctrine of co-trustee under the UTC. Trust counsel issue was a debate on who was the client of the trust counsel (i.e. the trust itself or individual trustees). Chapter VI explores equitable deviation and cy pres doctrine of charitable trusts. Especially, the trustee-selection process and the narrow purpose of the Bishop Estate have been subject to criticism that the old provision should be revised to reflect the change made after 1884. The debate shown in the Bishop Estate would shed some light on Korean trust jurisprudence, which has relatively short history.

한국어

이 글은 하와이의 대형 공익신탁인 Bishop Estate의 사례에서 문제된 신탁법상 쟁 점을 살펴보면서 그 시사점을 찾기 위한 작업이다. 사안에서 문제된 쟁점 대부분은 일반 신탁법리에 관한 것이어서 향후 우리나라의 신탁법리 정립에도 시사하는 바 가 크다. 사안에서 수탁자들의 신인의무 위반 유형은 매우 다양했다. 충실의무 위반과 관련 하여 수탁자의 개인적 추가투자, 수탁자의 의무해태 관련 분쟁시의 업무처리가 문 제되었는바, 우리나라에 아직 낯선 논의이기는 하지만 일반적 충실의무 위반의 범 주에 포섭할 수 있을 것으로 보인다. 주의의무 위반과 관련하여 신탁재산의 투자대 상 및 투자결정절차, 나아가 감시의무가 문제되었다. 이 사례에서 직접 문제되지는 않았지만, 투자대상과 관련하여 우리 신탁법 제41조의 법정 목록 방식을 탄력화하 여 포트폴리오 투자가 가능하도록 개선할 필요가 있다. 나아가 Bishop Estate와 같이 오랜 역사를 갖는 신탁의 경우 신탁목적의 변경 등 신탁변경의 필요성이 커진다. 신탁변경은 위탁자의 의사와 신탁의 현실적 운영 사 이의 긴장이 발생하는 지점이다. 특히 공익신탁의 경우 기부자 의사의 존중이 사전 적으로도 기부활동을 활성화할 수 있다는 관점에서 볼 때, 공익신탁법 제7조의 변경 인가 요건 중에 신탁목적의 변경이 가능한 사유를 구체적으로 규정할 필요가 있다.