Since the ratification of the Hague Trust Convention by the Netherlands and Italy, the question of whether civil law countries ought to have a trust or a legal institution resembling it has gained importance.

the Business and Law Research Centre at the University of Nijmegen founded an international working group of experts in the field of trust law in 1996. This group developed eight principles of European trust law designed to facilitate transactions within European jurisdictions, to enable countries to recognise the potential for the development of new domestic legal concepts and to provide guidance as to how these developments can be framed in different legal and socio-economic contexts.

This book provides a detailed analysis of these principles both from a common law and a civil law point of view. In particular, the national reports give an overview of the current law relating to trusts and fiduciary relationships and, in the case of civil law jurisdictions, whether the trust concept can be incorporated in the domestic legal systems on the basis of the eight principles.