Firm Fights Back Against Alleged Unconstitutional Unclaimed Property Audit

As we've noted previously, state unclaimed property administrators are getting creative in their efforts to restore their states' battered finances. Now companies are getting equally creative in their efforts to fight back.

Earlier this summer, Temple-Inland, Inc. ("Temple-Inland"), a subsidiary of International Paper, filed a lawsuit against three Delaware state unclaimed property officials and the state's outside audit firm, Kelmar Associates, LLC ("Kelmar") (Kelmar was voluntarily dismissed from the suit in July). The lawsuit alleges that the methodology Kelmar employed to audit Temple-Inland, including the extrapolation methodology used to estimate Temple-Inland's unclaimed property obligations, was unconstitutional.