The Expert Podcast

So what is a fraudulent conveyance and how does it affect a lawsuit or judgment you may have against somebody? Remember, we're not attorneys, we're not giving you legal advice, but as a licensed private investigator, many times we're searching for fraudulent conveyances.

Basically, what that is, if you have a bankruptcy case or a lawsuit or judgment and the other party, the losing party, starts to move assets out of their ownership, that may be a fraudulent conveyance. For example, if you have a lawsuit claim against somebody and they have assets that could pay off that claim, but then they sell them off or they transfer them away or they give them away, that's putting your assets that you have claims on out of your reach.

This is the case in a very large lawsuit for Johnson & Johnson, a major pharmaceutical company that lost a lawsuit for talc in things like baby powder that caused injuries and illnesses. They lost a lawsuit. Johnson & Johnson is going forward with a third bankruptcy plan to settle lawsuits that their products cause cancer. But what happened was they announced they were going to transfer billions of dollars of assets from their company to other entities.

A lawsuit filed alleged that Johnson & Johnson pursued a strategy of transfers and bankruptcy filings to hinder, delay, and defraud the plaintiff. So what they're doing is they are taking some of their assets and manipulating them to sidestep their obligations, and that's what a fraudulent conveyance does.

It could be a small case, it could be a $100 million case, or a billion-dollar case. And it could be a small case; you could have a lawsuit against somebody because they owe you for $15,000, and if they have $10,000 in the bank and they transfer it away, that could be considered a fraudulent conveyance.

So what you want to do is if you have a claim against somebody or you're a bankruptcy creditor, you want to make sure you're searching to make sure the assets are not going south. You can contact us below if you want more information about how to do that research, how to do that asset tracing to find out if your judgment claim is being weakened because the debtor is doing funny business with their assets to try to keep it out of your control.