Thinking About Prenups if Apple Wins
The debate so far over whether Apple should help the U.S. government execute a warrant to see what is on one of its phones has focused on the information of a dead terrorist and the prospective data breach (according to Apple) of millions of…
What if My Spouse Won at Powerball?
In honor of today’s $1.5 billion Powerball jackpot, we bring to the top the piece we wrote nearly three years ago, Jackpot! Finding Lottery Winnings.
The executive summary of that entry is that lottery winnings are federally taxable and…
Hawala: Red Flags for Detecting the World’s Oldest Form of Money Laundering
We write (and tell our clients) consistently about how difficult it is to obtain the bank account information of litigation opponents without first getting a court order. There are people out there who will charge you to trick banks into…
Even if You Get Bank Accounts, Your Work Has Just Begun
We are asked all the time to get into the bank account records of the other side in divorce and other matters. As we’ve written many times, most recently here and various entries here, without a court order you can't make a bank hand over…
Magical Bank Account Searching
It happens at least twice a month: someone calls our office and asks us to obtain bank account information for another person – usually an estranged spouse.
We reply that without a court order, we are not entitled to know the account number,…
Prenup Vehicles Offshore Can Contain Marital Assets Too
One of the core principles of good investigation is to assume nothing and start looking from scratch. We have found a lot of money over the years hiding in plain sight: in new companies named after old companies in neighboring states, or even…
Envelopes Stuffed with Cash and Secret Offshore Companies: how $20 million goes missing
In a dramatic divorce case unfolding in Southern California this week, Hydee Feldstein, a retired partner at a large law firm, accused her ex-husband Peter Gregora of stealing $20 million of the couple’s money over the course of their marriage. …
Two Bites at the Apple to Catch the Worm: reopening divorces in cases of fraud
This week, the U.K. Supreme Court is reviewing the cases of Alison Sharland and Varsha Gohil to determine whether a spouse can reopen a divorce case in instances of fraud or misrepresentation after the parties have reached a settlement agreement.
Sharland…
The Divorce Asset Questionnaire
People often ask when it comes to searching for assets, “Where do you even begin to look?” This sometimes comes after we give them the grown-up news that there is no magic computer terminal that will accept a Social Security Number and churn…
Three Men, One Wife: husband’s business partners sued in “dirty soap opera” divorce
In an unusual move for a divorce case, a Queens judge added Benny Tal’s business partners as defendants in Benny’s divorce action because the three men had colluded to hide Benny’s assets from his wife Michal. As Michal told the New…
