In it Brightman J gave a comprehensive discussion of the duties of trustees in connection with companies whose shares are part of the trust property.

Although it is common to hear lawyers refer to "the rule in Bartlett v Barclays Bank", the case only restated law that had been accepted since Speight v Gaunt.

In an attempt to raise cash, the trust appointed merchant bankers to consider taking the company public.

Their defence, that they honestly and reasonably believed the board of directors to be competent and capable of running the business, was rejected.

Brightman J distanced the court from suggestions made in Re Lucking's Will Trusts [1968] 1 WLR 866 (at 874) that a controlling shareholder should insist upon being represented on the board, although he agreed that this would be one way in which the trustee could ensure that all of the necessary information was available to him.

Bartlett Trust (Holdings) Ltd. (BTH) made a large loss as a result of the involvement of itself and BTL in the Old Bailey project.

The loss to the trust fund could have been avoided (as I find) without difficulty or disruption had the bank been prepared to lead, in a broad sense, rather than to follow.

Nor must the court be astute to fix liability upon a trustee who has committed no more than an error of judgment, from which no business man, however prudent, can expect to be immune: see Lopes L.J.

The Old Bailey project was a gamble, because it involved buying into the site at prices in excess of the investment values of the properties, with no certainty or probability, with no more than a chance, that planning permission could be obtained for a financially viable redevelopment, that the numerous proprietors would agree to sell out or join in the scheme, that finance would be available upon acceptable terms, and that the development would be completed, or at least become a marketable asset, before the time came to start winding up the trust.

However one looks at it, the project was a hazardous speculation upon which no trustee could properly have ventured without explicit authority in the trust instrument.

I therefore hold that the entire expenditure in the Old Bailey project would have been incurred in breach of trust, had the money been spent by the bank itself.

The bank, as trustee, was bound to act in relation to the shares and to the controlling position which they conferred, in the same manner as a prudent man of business.

What the prudent man of business will not do is to content himself with the receipt of such information on the affairs of the company as a shareholder ordinarily receives at annual general meetings.

In the same way, as it seems to me, trustees holding a controlling interest ought to ensure so far as they can that they have such information as to the progress of the company's affairs as directors would have.

He was merely outlining convenient methods by which a prudent man of business (as also a trustee) with a controlling interest in a private company, can place himself in a position to make an informed decision whether any action is appropriate to be taken for the protection of his asset.

The purpose to be achieved is not that of monitoring every move of the directors, but of making it reasonably probable, so far as circumstances permit, that the trustee or (as in the Lucking case) one of them will receive an adequate flow of information in time to enable the trustees to make use of their controlling interest should this be necessary for the protection of their trust asset, namely, the shareholding.

The principle enunciated in the Lucking case appears to have been applied in In re Miller (unreported), March 21, 1978 , a decision of Oliver J.

With a specialist staff of trained trust officers and managers, with ready access to financial information and professional advice, dealing with and solving trust problems day after day, the trust corporation holds itself out, and rightly, as capable of providing an expertise which it would be unrealistic to expect and unjust to demand from the ordinary prudent man or woman who accepts, probably unpaid and sometimes reluctantly from a sense of family duty, the burdens of a trusteeship.

The advertising literature of the bank was not in evidence (other than the scale of fees) but counsel for the defendant did not dispute that trust corporations, including the bank, hold themselves out as possessing a superior ability for the conduct of trust business, and in any event I would take judicial notice of that fact.

Having expressed my view of the higher duty required from a trust corporation, I should add that the bank's counsel did not dispute the proposition.

In my judgment the bank wrongfully and in breach of trust neglected to ensure that it received an adequate flow of information concerning the intentions and activities of the boards of BTL and BTH.

I hold that the bank failed in its duty whether it is judged by the standard of the prudent man of business or of the skilled trust corporation.

The bank is liable for the loss so suffered by the trust estate, except to the extent that I shall hereafter indicate.This rule bears a striking similarity to that enacted in s 1 Trustee Act 2000.