Fraud, Trusts and Trusting: Enforcing Crown Forfeitures in Equity, c.1570–1620

36 Pages Posted: 12 Oct 2023

See all articles by David Foster

David Foster

University College London - Faculty of Laws

Date Written: October 11, 2023

Abstract

Conveyances with informal agreements to hold for the benefit of the transferor initially proved efficacious in avoiding statutory forfeiture provisions. In the late sixteenth century, the equity side of the Exchequer developed a capacious doctrine of revenue fraud designed to capture such informal arrangements and to subject the transferor to liability for crown forfeitures. Initially drawing inspiration from the ‘badges of fraud’ in the Statute of Fraudulent Conveyances 1571, the Exchequer quickly lowered the evidentiary threshold required to prove a conveyance fraudulent. A key badge of fraud was an ‘entrusting’ of the transferee by the transferor. The presence of a conveyance ‘in trust’ eventually became the sole evidence required to hold certain conveyances fraudulent under the statute. In the longer term, these cases became the precedential basis for holding the beneficiary’s right under a trust liable to forfeiture as a matter of doctrine.

Keywords: trust, fraud, forfeiture, crown, exchequer, equity, fraudulent conveyances, outlaws, recusants, traitors, fugitives, felons

JEL Classification: K00

Suggested Citation

Foster, David, Fraud, Trusts and Trusting: Enforcing Crown Forfeitures in Equity, c.1570–1620 (October 11, 2023). The Journal of Legal History Forthcoming, Faculty of Laws University College London Law Research Paper No. 18/2023, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4599207 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4599207

David Foster (Contact Author)

University College London - Faculty of Laws ( email )

Bentham House
4-8 Endsleigh Gardens
London, WC1E OEG
United Kingdom

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