Law Commons^™

Recalling Why Corporate Officers Are Fiduciaries, Lyman P.Q. Johnson, David K. Millon

David K. Millon

For all the recent federal attention to regulating - and differentiating - corporate officer and director functions, a curious fact remains: state fiduciary duty law makes no distinction between the fiduciary duties of these two groups. Instead, courts and commentators routinely describe the duties of directors and officers together, and in identical terms. To lump officers and directors together as generic fiduciaries with no distinction being made between them, suggests - as patently is not the case - that their institutional function and legal roles within the corporation are the same. Such a view, consequently, undermines efforts more sharply to …