We recommend reporting this property to the Illinois Treasurer, unless the foreign country of your customer’s last-known address has its own unclaimed property law (which appears to be the case in only a handful of countries, such as Japan).

The new Illinois Revised Uniform Unclaimed Property Act (Illinois RUUPA) requires holders to report unclaimed property owned by someone in a foreign country to the Illinois Treasurer, provided that the “foreign country of the last-known address of the apparent owner . . . does not provide for custodial taking of the property” (in other words, it does not have its own version of an unclaimed property law). We have not been able to locate a global survey of unclaimed laws by country, but we are aware of at least one foreign country with an unclaimed property law — Japan. We are not aware of unclaimed property laws existing in the two examples that you provided, Mexico and Greece. Consequently, we recommend reporting this property to the Illinois Treasurer.

Our answer also depends on liability protections that the Illinois RUUPA provides. Once your institution reports and delivers property to the Illinois Treasurer, your bank is “relieved of all liability which thereafter may arise or be made in respect to the property to the extent of the value of the property so paid or delivered.” These protections are particularly important in the context of property with foreign ownership, as the Illinois RUUPA rule requiring this property to be reported to Illinois is not uncontroversial and potentially raises several constitutional and international law concerns. But with the protection from liability provided under the Illinois RUUPA, these concerns should not affect your bank.

For resources related to our guidance, please see:

• Illinois RUUPA, 765 ILCS 1026/15-304 (“Except as in subsection (b) or Section 15-302 or 15-303, the administrator may take custody of property presumed abandoned, whether located in this State, another State, or a foreign country, if the holder is domiciled in this State . . . and . . . (2) the state or foreign country of the last-known address of the apparent owner or other person entitled to the property does not provide for custodial taking of the property.”)

• Illinois RUUPA, 765 ILCS 1026/15-604(a) (“. . . A holder that pays or delivers property to the administrator in good faith and substantially complies with Sections 15-501 and 15-502 [required notice to the property’s apparent owner] is relieved of all liability which thereafter may arise or be made in respect to the property to the extent of the value of the property so paid or delivered.”)

• American Bar Association Comments to the Uniform Law Commission (February 23, 2016) (“First, any state law requiring the escheat of foreign-owned property conflicts with the federal common law rules promulgated by the U.S. Supreme Court for determining when a state has the right and jurisdiction to escheat unclaimed property. . . . The escheat foreign-owned property raises multiple concerns of deprivation of property without due process of law, in conflict with the Due Process Clause of the U.S. Constitution. . . . States may also lack jurisdiction to regulate foreign-owned property under international legal standards. . . . The escheat of foreign-owned property also conflicts with the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution. . . .”)