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A distinction should be drawn between disclosure by the trustees under trust law, due to the rights of beneficiaries to receive information and ‘non-party’ disclosure by trustees during litigation, whether voluntarily or as a result of a court order.

Trustees have a duty to account to beneficiaries, as set out by Millet LJ in Armitage v Nurse, so they must be cooperative in dealing with legitimate requests for information. Exercising their duty of disclosure appropriately is part of the trustees' fiduciary duties. Trustees asked for disclosure should consider whether there is a good reason to refuse. Beneficiaries do not have a proprietary right to inspect trust documents but rather, the right to demand the disclosure of documents and information based on the trustees’ duty of accountability.

The decision of Dawson Damer v Taylor Wessing LLP may enable a beneficiary to obtain information they cannot obtain under trust law if it can be framed as a request to their personal data. In Dawson Damer the request was pursuant to the now repealed Data Protection Act 1998, which has been replaced by the