It is hard to base your case on a breach of fiduciary duty when there is a contract in place between the parties.  Contracting parties owe no special duties to each other beyond the terms of the contract.  Branch Banking & Tr. Co. v. Thompson, 107 N.C. App. 53, 61, 418 S.E.2d 694, 699

A lot of North Carolina court decisions have questioned whether a claim for "aiding and abetting a breach of fiduciary duty" can be made in North Carolina  (many of them are cited in ¶16 of the Islet Sciences Opinion referenced below). Most of those decisions have cast doubt on whether that claim is recognized at

Were you thinking that the Business Court might, one day, find that a bank owed a fiduciary duty to its customer?  That seemed like it might happen eventually, as the NC Supreme Court seemed to hold out that possibility last year, in Dallaire v. Bank of America, N.A., 367 N.C. 363, 368 (2014), in which it said that:

it is possible, at least theoretically, for a particular bank-customer transaction to give rise to a fiduciary relationship under the proper circumstances.

But on Monday of this week, in RREF BB Acquisitions, LLC v. MAS Properties, LLC, 2015 NCBC 58, Judge McGuire stuck to the long-standing case law in North Carolina that a lender does not owe any fiduciary duties to its customer.  At the same time, however, he also recognized a new cause of action which might have ramifications for claims against any type of entity (not just a lender) which decides to break off negotiations with an opposing party.

The Plaintiff RREF had purchased from BB&T two loans totaling $5.275 million which BB&T had made to the Defendants back in 2005.  It had purchased the loans from BB&T while they were in default, and shortly after BB&T stopped negotiating a forbearance agreement with the Defendants.

No Fiduciary Duty

The Defendants’ lead argument against RREF’s lawsuit to collect on the loans was that BB&T had violated a fiduciary duty it owed to them.  They said that BB&T had breached its duty by failing to disclose its attempts to sell their loans while it was in the midst of negotiating a forbearance agreement with them.

The Defendants claimed that if they had known that BB&T was selling their loans, they would have tried to buy them themselves or had a third party buy the loans on their behalf.

The basis argued by the Defendants for BB&T’s alleged fiduciary duty was that they had a thirty year relationship with a local office, and that they had worked closely with the Bank in developing various residential communities and in selling homes in those communities.  Op. ¶41.  BB&T responded that it owed no fiduciary duties to the Defendants and that it was simply pursuing the options available to it as the holder of loans that were in default.

As Judge McGuire noted, "[t]here is no reported North Carolina appellate case in which a fiduciary relationship has been found in a borrower-lender transaction."  Op. ¶38.  Given that one of the hallmarks of a fiduciary relationship is "a duty of the fiduciary to act in the best interests of the other party," Judge McGuire held that "it would seem nearly antithetical to require a commercial lender to put a borrower’s interest ahead of its own in a business transaction."  Op. ¶41.

Another reason the Court refused to find a fiduciary relationship lay in the restructuring negotiations themselves.  Both the Defendants and the Bank were at this point represented by attorneys and were "negotiating to protect their respective best interests."  (Op. ¶43).  If there ever had been a fiduciary relationship between them, "such relationship ceased once BB&T declared Defendants in default of the Loans and the positions of the parties became adverse."  Op. ¶43.

The New Cause Of Action: Breach Of A Duty To Negotiate In Good Faith

Although it did grant summary judgment on the fiduciary duty claim, the Court nevertheless allowed the Defendants to go forward on a new claim hitherto not formally recognized in North Carolina: breach of a duty to negotiate in good faith.

Continue Reading NC Business Court Says That Bank Didn’t Owe A Fiduciary Duty To Its Customer, But Recognizes New Cause Of Action: Breach Of A Duty To Negotiate In Good Faith