Framework and RFP
We draft the cy pres purpose, eligibility and criteria with your office, tied to the conduct and the harm alleged in the case.
For Attorneys General
Put residual settlement funds to public use, on a record your office controls.
Parens patriae and multistate settlements often leave funds that cannot be returned to consumers directly. We run a competitive grants program with a nexus to the case, and your office keeps every funding decision.
California Certified Small Business (SB), certification no. 2037433
What we handle
We administer the entire grants program for your office.
Comprehensive outreach
We network extensively across the state to surface the organizations doing the best work for the people the case was brought to protect, including grassroots groups, not only the best-connected applicants.
Due diligence
Financial review, site visits and interviews, registration checks with your Registry of Charities, and non-supplant review for public agencies.
Recommendations
An Administrator's Report and Recommendations with several funding options. Your office makes the final decision.
Grants and payments
Grant agreements or state payee documentation, disbursements, and monitoring against each grantee's commitments.
Reporting
Periodic and final reports to your office and, where approval requires it, the court, covering every funded project.
Why a neutral administrator
Independence is what makes the distribution defensible.
Every applicant question and request comes to us, not to your attorneys, which keeps pressure from favored organizations out of the selection. Harry M. Snyder called this "a wall between counsel and the grant making process." Snyder (2015), p. 14
Attorneys are experts in the law and in remedies, not in evaluating technology, health or workforce projects. We bring grant-making discipline and subject-matter experts, so the funds go to projects that would not otherwise happen, run by organizations, often community-based, that serve the people the case was brought to protect. pp. 13–14
Where a fund needs only your office's approval, as with the Tech Cy Pres Fund, the process can move quickly. Where a court must approve recipients, we document each step for the motion.
Cy Pres Settlement Funds LLC is certified by the State of California as a Small Business (SB), certification no. 2037433. For California agencies, that can count toward small business contracting goals.
Our record with Attorneys General
From the California Department of Justice to national programs.
Now administering
Tech Cy Pres Fund
For the California Department of Justice: residual funds from three CRT and LCD price-fixing settlements, granted to 26 state agencies, local governments and nonprofits to close the digital divide.
About the fundFunds administered by Harry M. Snyder, with whom our team worked from 2003, include:
- California Attorney General: the eBay, CRT and DRAM settlement funds (2015–16), and the Mylan, Salton and Taxol funds (2003–05)
- All 50 states, D.C. and Puerto Rico: the Cardizem Settlement Fund (2008)
- A special committee of state Attorneys General: the nationwide Consumer and Prescriber Grant Program (2008–09)
Multistate settlements
Unspent shares of a multistate settlement?
A state's share of a multistate settlement is often left for the office to direct. We can design a program for your state alone, tailored to the conduct and the harm in the case, and run it to the same standard as a court-supervised distribution.
Our team's history includes nationwide programs run for committees of state Attorneys General, so we can also work across several states' shares when that serves the public better.
Have residual funds to direct?
Tell us about the settlement and any constraints in the order or agreement. We respond within one business day.
Talk with us about a settlement
Or email Matt Iverson-Comelo at matt@cypressettlementfunds.com