Unclaimed Property Services -

Unclaimed Property Services

Full-Spectrum Service

Dealing with unclaimed property issues can be challenging—but much less so when working with a firm whose experience spans the full spectrum. Sutherland attorneys have extensive experience with state unclaimed property and escheat laws and are prepared to help clients:

Analyze complex legal issues.
Issue legal opinions.
Conduct multistate/multi-entity unclaimed property internal compliance reviews and design compliance policies.
Advise clients in planning and related restructuring.
Negotiate voluntary disclosure agreements.
Defend single-state and multistate audits.
Litigate unclaimed property issues.
Influence unclaimed property policy.

We know the law and what is required to comply with it.

Representative Experience

Sutherland attorneys have considerable depth handling unclaimed property matters, including the following:

Legal Analysis and Business/Compliance Policy Design, conducting legal reviews of client facts and policies to determine whether unique types of accounts and balances constitute property subject to state unclaimed property laws. We help determine whether federal law preempts state jurisdiction to escheat particular types of property, whether proposed client policies or terms/conditions could mitigate or eliminate unclaimed property exposure, and whether clients are exposed to multiple liabilities (or can eliminate such exposure) with respect to property types, based on manner of reporting.
Internal Compliance Review, Multistate Voluntary Disclosure Agreements, and Amnesty Reporting, advising and representing numerous Fortune 500 corporations with respect to internal compliance reviews and negotiating multistate voluntary disclosures inside and outside the context of multistate amnesty programs. We often direct the work of unclaimed property consultants in connection with records review and liability quantification/mitigation processes to ensure preservation of legal privileges and quality of analysis and work product.
Merger and Acquisition Exposure Review, overseeing internal compliance review of corporations that experienced significant merger and acquisition activity during the prior 20 years, which entailed successor holder liability issues (particularly where acquired entities had no prior unclaimed property compliance program) and which created significant challenges to the identification of outstanding unclaimed property, as well as management of non-centralized quantification processes.
Multistate Contractor Audit Defense, advising and representing clients with respect to multistate unclaimed property audits, including audits conducted by contract auditing entities; negotiating terms of clients’ initial self-assessment process, if possible, and overseeing unclaimed property consultants’ records review; conducting legal assessments of proper reporting of unclaimed property pursuant to jurisdictional priority rules; developing legal defenses to reporting; and representing clients before contract auditors and states should disputes arise.
Complex Legal Opinions, preparing and providing legal opinions for corporate clients, for purposes of reserves determinations/documentation and return filing positions, with respect to service contracts, insurance policies, brokerage accounts, and other types of property interests, and for several clients with respect to validity and defensibility of different unclaimed property planning ideas, especially relating to stored-value cards, including suggesting improvements to structuring and implementation approaches to strengthen the clients’ filing positions.
Planning-Driven Corporate Restructuring, advising and representing clients with respect to unclaimed property restructuring projects designed to implement stored-value card issuing entities.
Litigation Counsel, providing expert legal counsel to clients, such as a telecommunications company assessing qui tam litigation of alleged unclaimed property liabilities arising with respect to “breakage” on pre-paid telephone cards and pre-paid mobile telephone accounts.
Model Unclaimed Property Legislation, working with several state treasurers and unclaimed property administrators (including representatives from Delaware and New York) to draft model “Holder’s Bill of Rights.” Model explains to state unclaimed property personnel, third-party auditors, and holders the procedures that are reasonable and fair in the performance of a multistate unclaimed property audit, including disclosure and verification of participating states and application of state confidentiality and conflict-of-interest rules to third-party contracts.
Model COST Legislation, drafting the Council On State Taxation’s “Model Unclaimed Property Act,” which proposes alternative and enhanced provisions to the 1995 Uniform Unclaimed Property Act, including early escheat options and holder indemnification, appropriate treatment of gift certificates/stored-value cards, and a recommendation that most business-to-business unclaimed property be exempt from the state unclaimed property laws.
State Legislative Activism, providing education to interested parties and support for state legislation, in numerous states, that limits or prevents the transfer or escheat of funds associated with unused gift certificates and unclaimed checks/credits from business-to-business transactions.