Delware and Temple Inland Settle - Questions to Remain Unanswered

In late June, 2016 a Delaware federal court issued a decision ruling that Delaware's unclaimed property audit and estimation practices "shock[ed] the conscience" of the court and likely violated the due process rights of Temple Inland (a Delaware company being subjected to an unclaimed property audit on Delaware's behalf by a private auditing firm).  While the court's holding was big news in the unclaimed property industry and signaled potentially seismic changes in the way unclaimed property audits are conducted, the real work was left to be done:  the Court expressly left open the issue of how Delaware's violations were to be remedied.

Even with this important step left to be taken, the holder community was understandably excited that -- finally -- there would be some answers concerning (a) the interplay between estimation and availability of records; (b) the proper methods for calculating and sourcing historical unclaimed property liabilities; and (c) the retroactivity of Delaware's estimation authority.

Well, it seems that we will have to wait a little longer.  According to a an Associated Press story in Saturday's Chicago Tribune, the parties in the Temple Inland case reached a settlement resolving the matter in full.  According to a joint-motion to dismiss the case filed by the parties on Friday, Delaware and Temple Inland have "entered into a voluntary settlement agreement that fully and finally resolves all claims, including all claims that were asserted, or that could have been asserted, in the case and therefore the matters in dispute between Plaintiff and Defendants have been resolved."

Accordingly, while the Temple Inland case showed that courts are willing ask the hard questions about Delaware's unclaimed property audit practices, it ultimately left those questions unanswered.