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Being keenly sensitive to the constant changes in law and business.
Readily adapting to changes in circumstances, and opening new
possibilities for clients. |
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Unclaimed Property
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Sub-Practices |
Every state has unclaimed property (sometimes
referred to as “abandoned property” or “escheat”)
laws. Pursuant to these laws, corporations, financial
institutions, insurance companies, and other
business entities are required to turnover unclaimed
property to the appropriate states after a statutorily-defined
period of time (anywhere from one to 15 years).
Examples of unclaimed property include uncashed
checks, unclaimed dividends, stale accounts receivable
credits, unused gift cards, unreturned security
deposits and many others. Given the varied nature
of items that can give rise to unclaimed property,
any business that has employees, customers, vendors,
or clients probably has unclaimed property to
be reported and remitted to the states.
Over the past decade, state governments have
markedly increased their unclaimed property enforcement
efforts and state-initiated unclaimed property
audits have become a common occurrence. Moreover,
states continue to expand the coverage and requirements
of their unclaimed property laws. As a result,
corporate policies that were state of the art
a few years ago may be seriously out of date.
Companies that fail to comply with unclaimed
property laws risk not only lengthy and disruptive
state audits, but also the imposition of interest
and penalties for noncompliance.
MDM&C’s unclaimed property practice provides
a full set of services to holders of unclaimed
property, including:
- representation
of holders in state unclaimed property
audits brought by state agencies or third-party
auditing firms;
- voluntary
compliance and remediation programs;
- advising
on unclaimed property obligations relating
to new payment technologies, including stored-value
cards and electronic payments;
- designing
unclaimed property programs and enhanced
policies and procedures that achieve compliance
and take advantage of all available exemptions;
and
- litigating
unclaimed property disputes with state agencies.
For more information about MDM&C’s unclaimed
property practice, please contact Michael Rato
at (973) 425-8661. |
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