The Institute for the Fiduciary Standard, a non-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of fiduciary principles, has awarded its first ever Tamar Frankel Fiduciary Prize to Robert A.G. Monks, the corporate governance activist and scholar. The Frankel Fiduciary Prize is intended to recognize contributions to “the preservation and advancement of fiduciary principles in public life” and is named after Professor Tamar Frankel of the Boston University Law School, a leading scholar in this field.

Professor John C. Coffee, Jr. of Columbia University Law School, the Chairman of the Nominating Committee that made this selection, explained the Committee’s decision, saying:

“Bob Monks is the perfect choice to inaugurate what we hope will be a long tradition of recognizing those persons who over a career have worked to protect and safeguard the position of the investor . . . [H]e has lived a life in the arena, fighting battle after battle to make the market a fairer and safer place for the American shareholder.”

Professor Coffee added that the “proactive hedge fund of today is following in his pioneering footsteps.”

Other members of the Nominating Committee were:

Brooksley E. Born, former chair of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission;

Deborah DeMott, Davif F. Cavers Professor of Law at Duke University Law School;

Andrew Golden, President, Princeton University Investment Company; and

Knut A. Rostad, President of the Institute for the Fiduciary Standard

An award ceremony is planned in Washington, D.C. in December (with the time and place to be announced).  Nominations for next year’s “Oscar” will be solicited in the Spring of 2014, and nominations from the public are invited.

For a fuller description of Bob Monk’s career and achievements, please see the attached here.