The $102 Million Payout Filed Under “Confidential Settlement”

For years, the category “Confidential Settlement” on Delaware's checkbook was a rounding error — a few hundred thousand dollars in a bad year. Then, in fiscal year 2025, it exploded to $103.9 million. The payer: the Department of Finance, which wrote checks as large as $11.5 million to a payee the state's own transparency ledger records only as “SETTLEMENT PAYMENT.” The checkbook won't tell you who got the money. Public records will.

The line in the ledger

Delaware's open checkbook labels every payment with a category. This one is literally named “Confidential Settlement,” and in most years it barely registers:

“Confidential Settlement” category by fiscal year. Source: State of Delaware Checkbook, data.delaware.gov.

What it actually is

The timing and the amount give it away. In August 2024 — six weeks into FY2025 — Delaware announced a settlement with 30 other states ending a decade of litigation over MoneyGram “official checks” — money orders in all but name that MoneyGram had been handing over to Delaware, its state of incorporation, instead of to the states where the checks were bought. The other states sued. In 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court sided with them, unanimously, in Delaware v. Pennsylvania.

Under the settlement, Delaware agreed to transfer more than $102 million of the property MoneyGram had reported to it between 2011 and 2017, distributed to the participating states based on where each instrument was purchased — which is exactly what a stack of eight-figure checks from the Department of Finance to “SETTLEMENT PAYMENT” looks like on a ledger. A separate escrow of roughly $89 million that MoneyGram had paid in during the litigation was divided among all 50 states, putting the total resolution above $190 million.

Why Delaware had the money in the first place

Unclaimed property — dormant accounts, uncashed checks, forgotten balances — escheats to a company's state of incorporation. Since more than a million entities are incorporated in Delaware, unclaimed property has long been one of the state's largest revenue sources, worth hundreds of millions of dollars a year to the Department of Finance. The MoneyGram case tested the edge of that machine: the Court ruled these particular instruments belonged to the states where they were bought, not to the state of incorporation. Delaware kept the money for years; in FY2025, it gave $102 million of it back.

No verdict — but one observation

States settle lawsuits, and confidentiality clauses exist. But there is something worth sitting with: a transparency portal whose single largest settlement line in history lists the recipient as “SETTLEMENT PAYMENT.” Every number in this story came from stitching the state's own checkbook to court filings and press releases. The checkbook alone would never have told you.

Check it yourself

Query the State of Delaware Checkbook for category “CONFIDENTIAL SETTLEMENT,” or browse the Department of Finance profile and the checkbook explorer. Settlement coverage: Delaware Public Media · Alston & Bird.