In past issues of the New York Law Journal, I wrote about how several decisions issued by the New York Court of Appeals in the past five years (most notably Koehler v. Bank of Bermuda, 12 N.Y.3d 533, in 2009, and Hotel 71 Mezz Lender v. Falor, 14 N.Y.3d 303, in 2010), have made New York an attractive forum for judgment creditors to execute on judgment debtors’ assets held by others throughout the world. These decisions broadly construed the CPLR to permit New York courts to order the turnover of assets held by garnishees outside of the state so long as New York could assert personal jurisdiction over those garnishees.
While the Court of Appeals limited this expansion last year in Mariana Islands v. Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, 21 N.Y.3d 55 (2013) (by requiring that the precise entity over which New York exercises personal jurisdiction have actual possession of the assets), New York remains at the forefront of allowing post-judgment turnover of out-of-state assets.
