trust company

any company whose powers are limited to the powers specified in subsection (a) of the first section of the Act entitled 'An Act to place authority over the trust powers of national banks in the Comptroller of the Currency,' approved September 28, 1962.

Defined by the Supreme Court in Lewis v. Bt Investment Managers Inc, 447 U.S. 27 (1980).

The business of such companies consists largely in the administration of trusts of various kinds, and particularly those arising under corporate mortgages. It is a common practice for them to become surety on bonds in legal proceedings and in various other ways, and they usually also transact a safe deposit business. See Safe Deposit Companies; Suretyship.

A corporation formed for the purpose of taking, accepting, and executing all such trusis as may be lawfully committed to it, and acting as testamentary trustee, trustee under deeds of settlement or for married women, executor, guardian, etc. To these functions are sometimes (but not necessarily) added the business of acting as fiscal agent for corporations attending to the registration and transfer of their stock and bonds, serving as trustee for their bond or mortgage creditors, and transacting a genera] banking and loan business. See Venner v. Farmers' L. & T. Co.., 54 App. Div. 271, 66 N. Y. Supp. 773; Jenkins v. Neff, 163 N. Y. 320, 57 N. E. 408; Mercantile Nat. Bank v. New York, 121 U. S. 138, 7 Sup. Ct. 826, 30 L. Ed. 895.

Defined under Trust in Black's Law Dictionary.