5 Key Takeaways | 2024 Emerging Trends: Delaware Unclaimed Property VDA and Multistate Audits
Do Gift Cards Keep on Giving How the Law Affects the Consumer, the Retailer and the State
What in the world is unclaimed property and escheat? And why are tax people dealing with it? Matt Hunsaker gives a basic high-level overview of the world of unclaimed property....more
Unclaimed property audits and compliance issues will continue to be a challenge for companies in a wide range of industries. States view escheat as an important source of revenue, and contingent fee auditors will do their...more
The continuing epic of Univar’s struggle against Delaware and its use of a third-party auditor continues in district court, only to continue on in state court, again. Our Unclaimed Property Team breaks down the many...more
Legislation requiring the life insurance industry to conduct searches of the Social Security Administration’s Death Master File (DMF) and set the trigger for the escheatment dormancy period at the date of an insured’s death...more
On March 7, 2018, the Minnesota Supreme Court issued a decision in Hall v. Minnesota, No. A16-0874, requiring the Minnesota Commissioner of Commerce to pay interest on proceeds from an interest-bearing account while the...more
Delaware is instituting an aggressive push forward on its controversial unclaimed property audit program, as indicated in two recent announcements. The Secretary of State has announced that his office will begin sending...more
In 2015, following Delaware’s commencement of an unclaimed property audit of Plains All American Pipeline, that holder initiated a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware seeking declaratory judgment...more
A facial challenge to Delaware’s use of contingency-fee unclaimed property auditors has been given new life by a federal appellate court, which held that the arrangement is subject to due process review, reversing the lower...more
On August 9, 2017, the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (Third Circuit), overruling the US District Court for the District of Delaware (District Court), allowed a claim by a holder seeking to prevent an unclaimed...more
In the case of Plains All American Pipeline L.P. v. Cook, et al., decided on August 9, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit largely affirmed the dismissal of Plains All American Pipeline L.P.’s (Plains) complaint...more
Delaware and its third-party auditors intend to continue using the same controversial estimation techniques in unclaimed property audits, as described in newly proposed regulations, even after a federal court found a...more
The proposed reforms are a welcome change, specifically as they relate to lookback periods, electronic filing and limited compliance reviews. As a result of what some might view as a scathing decision by the U.S....more
In April, Florida amended its Disposition of Unclaimed Property Act (“Act”) to require life insurers to perform Death Master File (DMF) searches for all policies issued since 1992. The amended Act also provides that a DMF...more
The court case challenging Delaware’s unclaimed property audit methodologies has settled following an opinion brutalizing Delaware’s position. This settlement leaves the US District Court for the District of Delaware...more
On August 5, 2016, plaintiff Temple-Inland Inc. and defendants Delaware Secretary of Finance, State Escheator and Abandoned Property Audit Manager filed a joint motion to dismiss with prejudice the...more
On June 28, 2016, the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware issued a long-awaited decision in Temple-Inland, Inc. v. Cook, No. 1:14-cv-00654. In a ruling on the parties’ cross motions for summary judgment, the...more
On June 28, 2016, the much-anticipated memorandum opinion of the US District Court for the District of Delaware in Temple-Inland, Inc. v. Cook et al., No. 14-654-GMS was released on the parties’ cross-motions for summary...more
A very interesting unclaimed property memorandum opinion was recently issued by the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware in Temple-Inland, Inc. v. Cook, et al. After the State of Delaware conducted an audit going...more
Background - As detailed in our blog last month, MoneyGram Payment Systems, Inc. (MoneyGram) is stuck in between a rock and a hard place as states continue to duel with Delaware over the proper classification of (and...more
On February 29, 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court denied the writ of certiorari to review the judgment of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Taylor v. Yee, 780 F.3d 928 (9th Cir. 2015). The case involves a 13-year...more
As soon as we start to think that Delaware’s unclaimed property practices and administration couldn’t possibly get any more egregious, another lawsuit like JLI Invest S.A. et al. v. Cook et al., Case No. 11274 surfaces. The...more
As noted in prior mailings on this topic, all 50 states require companies to comply with broad and often complex unclaimed property laws that mandate annual reporting. Unclaimed property is generally defined as tangible or...more
The judge in a case challenging Delaware’s use of sampling and extrapolation to determine unclaimed property liability denied the state’s motion to dismiss and in doing so, seriously questioned the State’s approach. ...more
A lawsuit challenging the unclaimed property estimation methodology used by the State of Delaware and its auditor Kelmar Associates will proceed, according to a ruling issued by a Delaware federal district court on March 11....more