Case Study: Bank Acting as Trustee 

Our client, a bank, was a trustee for a trust that owned real estate in downtown Denver upon which a twenty-six story office building was constructed.  The tenant of the building leased the trust property under a long-term lease signed in the late 1960’s.  In 2002, the beneficiaries under the trust sued the trustee for breach of fiduciary duties, claiming that the trustee breached its duties by signing the lease and, years later, by entering into a “conflict of interest” transaction in which the trust side of the bank consented, on behalf of the trust, to a loan by the lending arm of the bank.  DGS was successful at trial, achieving dismissal of all claims by the plaintiffs.