Two recent decisions from the Delaware Court of Chancery involving trusts may not be categorized as traditional corporate or commercial litigation cases but they are important enough in terms of the amount of money involved and the legal issues addressed, that they will likely be of interest for those who may want to preserve their wealth.

In a decision involving a trust created by the founders of W.L. Gore Co., the privately-owned multi-billion dollar Delaware-based business, the Court recently rejected an effort by beneficiaries to, in essence, squeeze more money out of the trust via the adoption by a beneficiary of her ex-husband. An article with more details on the decision is available here.  The opinion is available here.  A prior Chancery decision in this case was highlighted on these pages here.

In a separate decision in late July, the Court of Chancery addressed the efforts of a co-trustee, a bank that was also unfortunately (for the beneficiary) a creditor, to satisfy debts of the beneficiary with trust assets. This arrangement made the asset protection trust, from the beneficiary’s perspective, a complete failure. An article in Forbes describes the case in more detail here.