Qualified Settlement Funds -A MECHANISM WHOSE TIME HAS COME.
View this informative article by Robert W. Wood, published in the Los Angeles Daily Journal, July 23, 2009. “Whatever you choose to call it, a Qualified Settlement Fund, called a QSF or a Section 468B trust, is a flexible distribution mechanism…[that] can make the settlement process smoother, more efficient and much more closely tailored to what the plaintiffs and their counsel really need and want.”
(NOTE from Jack Meligan): While Rob Wood’s article presents excellent reasons why QSFs are increasingly popular settlement tools, I think he has missed the boat when it comes to the “controversy” over using QSFs in single claimant cases. The Treasury Regulations promulgating the rules for creating a QSF quite clearly state that these trusts must exist to “…satisfy one or more legal claims.” Mr. Wood’s article (in the last column, first sentence) paraphrases the regulation but omits the reference to “one or more.”
Other writers have stated that “one or more” means just that -one or more. And since a court must approve their creation and maintain jurisdiction over the distributions from a QSF, the constructive receipt arguments foisted by self-serving casualty companies opposing this vehicle go out the window.)
<<click here to view the Robert Wood QSF article>>
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