What trustees get wrong about the duty to inform.

  • 08/26/2026
Most trustees who end up in front of the Court of Chancery did not mismanage anything. They just told the beneficiaries too little, too late.

The practical protection Delaware offers a trustee is not secrecy. It is the report. A beneficiary who has received adequate disclosure has a limited window to object. A beneficiary who has received nothing has not started that window at all.

This is the trade most trustees get backwards. They treat reporting as an obligation to be minimized, when it functions as the mechanism that closes exposure. Every year a trustee reports properly is a year that eventually falls out of reach. Every year of quiet administration stays open.

This is the trade most trustees get backwards. They treat reporting as an obligation to be minimized, when it functions as the mechanism that closes exposure. Every year a trustee reports properly is a year that eventually falls out of reach. Every year of quiet administration stays open.

This is the trade most trustees get backwards. They treat reporting as an obligation to be minimized, when it functions as the mechanism that closes exposure. Every year a trustee reports properly is a year that eventually falls out of reach. Every year of quiet administration stays open.