Bankruptcy Attorneys

You win a big judgement, but the defendant has tucked his assets into an offshore account. Collecting will be a challenge.
The accusations in the rape trial were sordid, even by Los Angeles standards. A woman we will call “Ms. X” said she met John Gordon Jones, an office supplies entrepreneur, at a nightclub in Hollywood. Ms. X, then 25, said that Jones laced her drink with a date-rape drug, then took her back in his limo to his home north of Beverly Hills. She awoke to find herself being sexually attacked, first by another woman and then by Jones. In a 2001 trial Jones was charged with kidnapping and raping Ms. X and eight other victims. Jones said the sex was consensual. He won acquittal on all counts.

Ms. X was not done. She pursued a civil case against Jones, and a judge awarded her $6 million (including interest) in 2002. When the woman tried to collect, however, she discovered that Jones had transferred the bulk of his $8 million in assets to accounts in the Cook Islands. This is a favorite South Pacific haven of the wealthy to keep their fortunes beyond the reach of creditors, lawyers and ex-wives.

With Cook Islands law designed to attract business from people who want to protect their assets from judgments, it would have been next to impossible for Ms. X to collect her money in a legal action there. So she sued the Cook Islands bank that held the Jones trust in the U.S., winning a $3 million default judgment. But this judgment was no more enforceable than the earlier one. Reason: This bank had no discernible assets in the U.S. to attach. Needless to say, offshore banks in asset havens usually do not maintain correspondent balances in New York City. They do business with a daisy chain of other offshore banks.

More : forbes.com

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