The Supreme Court handed a victory to the $11trn mutual fund industry by endorsing a 1982 legal standard to decide the fairness of fund fees, a ruling that gives companies considerable freedom to set investment adviser charges. The justices unanimously adopted the standard in a 1982 US appeals court ruling that fees are excessive only when they are so high they could not be the result of arm’s-length bargaining and bear no reasonable relationship to the services provided. Industry executives and attorneys described the high court’s ruling as a big win because it limits the potential that Congress or lower courts could force fund firms to reduce the roughly $90bn they collect in fees every year.