Ideally, the process of mergers and acquisitions should be clean and simple, with all a purchased company’s assets becoming the property of its new owner. However, a shocking amount of the time, valuable assets are left behind, with some companies leaving behind thousands or even millions of dollars without realizing it. Here are five reasons you might need an asset recovery lawyer:
- Office closures lead to undelivered checks or assets.
- The single most common reason that companies wind up needing asset recovery teams is that they lose money that is delivered to an office that has long since been closed. When a check gets sent to a closed office, it often winds up in an unclaimed property fund, which is run by the state. Unfortunately, states rarely inform people that they have assets in an unclaimed property fund.
- Errors caused by employee turnover.
- Another common source of problems can come from employee turnover. Often, an employee will receive a check or other record relating to a company’s assets, and not knowing what to do with it, they will stash it away for safekeeping where only they can find it. Then they leave the company, and that asset gets lost without ever being appropriately delivered. An asset recovery firm can help you track down these lost and undelivered assets to ensure they get added to your bottom line.
- The assets are under an old company name.
- Another common issue that comes up is when a company changes its name, perhaps due to a rebranding effort or a business restructuring. When this happens, bank accounts and other assets under that old name might not get included as part of the overall calculation in a merger or acquisition. Asset recovery lawyers can go through old records to find accounts under these defunct names and ensure they get where they belong.
- Assets get tied up in litigation.
- Sometimes, the problem is that assets get tied up in litigation, especially when there is an issue related to bankruptcy. Lawsuits can potentially go on for years, with payments on claims potentially not going out until long after the lawsuit is finished. The sheer amount of time involved means that claims might be paid out to old addresses, old businesses, or to a registered agent your company no longer uses, causing it to get lost.
- Records get lost or destroyed.
- Finally, sometimes the problem is simply that old records are lost or destroyed in the shuffle of a merger or acquisition. This can be especially true if your company is old enough to have some transactions only recorded on paper, when a lost box or file folder can mean entire accounts are simply never transferred over. Add in the potential of records being damaged due to fires, floods, or other disasters, and you can easily lose thousands of dollars without ever knowing they were gone.
Let the asset recovery attorneys at Poulson Law Offices help you recover what is rightfully yours. We do the hard work of uncovering undelivered or lost assets wherever they may be held, and ensure they are returned to you. With billions of unclaimed assets sitting in state funds, bankruptcy courts and other agencies, you potentially have a great deal to gain. If you are interested or believe you may have need of our asset recovery services, please call our Cooperstown office at 607-547-1195.
