Fiduciary duties for investment intermediaries: What can China learn?

by Zheyuan Wang

The concept of fiduciary duties has existed since the very beginning of humanity's codification of rules and has long been playing a pivotal role as a cornerstone of equity. ¹ When the financial services industry began to emerge, as it intrinsically requires particular service providers, such as investment managers, advisers and brokers, to be loyal to their clients and careful with managing clients' assets, fiduciary principles were developed to hold these investment intermediaries accountable, ensuring they always act in the interests of their clients. The subsequent explosion of the financial sector and rapid growth of wealth management demands across the world further highlighted the necessity of applying fiduciary duties to these institutions and has attracted great attention from academics, practitioners and legislators.