Risk Management Blog

Federal tax liens are regularly filed at county filing offices across the country, so your account monitoring process should include those jurisdictions. In our experience, we see many federal tax liens being filed at the county instead of the state filing office. A federal tax lien, whether filed at the state or the county, may affect your priority position; therefore it is critical to keep an eye on lien-holder activity at both the state… >> READ MORE

Once a creditor has filed a UCC Financing Statement they will want to do all they can to maintain their priority position throughout the life of the loan. Lien monitoring programs run interval searches on debtor names to check for any new filing activity, and then provide timely updates to alert a creditor to potential threats. Monitoring offers an easy and affordable way for a secured party to keep an eye on other lien-holder activity against… >> READ MORE

There are countless occasions in which a person could be asked to supply a certificate of good standing for their business, or where a lender or attorney acts to obtain one. Two of the most common scenarios are to register or qualify a company to transact business in another state, and to open a business banking account. A good standing certificate verifies that an entity is authorized to transact business in a given jurisdiction and… >> READ MORE

Could you use a refresher on UCC filing rules? You’re in luck! This week, we welcome guest author, attorney, Bennett L. Cohen to the blog! Read on for the second installment in his two-part blog series detailing the basic filing rules under Revised Article 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code. It's vitally important that UCC filers understand and observe the basic UCC filing rules under the Uniform Commercial Code (the "Code") described… >> READ MORE

Could you use a refresher on UCC filing rules? You’re in luck! This week, we welcome guest author, attorney, Bennett L. Cohen to the blog! Read on for the second installment in his three-part blog series detailing the basic filing rules under Revised Article 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code. It's vitally important that UCC filers understand and observe the basic UCC filing rules under the Uniform Commercial Code (the "Code") described… >> READ MORE

As the Factoring world prepares to convene in Scottsdale April 13-16 for the annual International Factoring Association (IFA) conference, one of the topics of discussion will be the rise of Merchant Cash Advancers and their impact on the Factoring community. One of the speaker sessions will focus on this, as described below: Merchant Cash Advance Companies (MCA's) are relatively new to the business funding arena. Their method of operation… >> READ MORE

Attorney Bennett Cohen returns this week to continue his examination on control agreements for pledged securities accounts. This is part six in our eight part series on the topic of control agreements. To start from the beginning, please see the first post, Examining Issues with Control Agreements for Pledged Securities Accounts. Does the control agreement govern if it conflicts with any of the customer agreements between Pledgor… >> READ MORE

We're back this week with more in our series from attorney Bennett Cohen on control agreements for pledged securities accounts. This is the fourth post in our series, so if you need a refresher please visit his introductory post, Examining Issues with Control Agreements for Pledged Securities Accounts. We've reviewed quite a number of control agreements which provide that the Broker shall have no liability to the Lender except for… >> READ MORE

A filing officer will not reject a document for a punctuation error, but it could potentially cause the name not to be found later as part of a UCC search effort. Each state independently implements its own search logic. Most states have adopted a version of the International Association of Commercial Administrator’s Model Administrative Rules for UCC searching which disregards punctuation, but some states are stricter than others. A UCC… >> READ MORE

When recently presented with these questions, we found the answers from Darrell Pierce of the law firm Dykema Gossett PLLC , reprinted below: “Article 9 recognizes that secured parties may choose to alter their relative priority by agreement. There is no need to file notices of subordination to make them legally effective, or to maintain the perfected status of either security party. However, for the purpose of informing searchers that… >> READ MORE