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Is Your (Non-True) Lease a Sale?

By Edward Gross and Philip Livingston
June 28, 2007

Just in case the transaction you've just documented using your standard lease forms is not a 'lease,' you've included a granting clause in the form and filed UCC 'notice' filings. So, you've protected the lessor from a re-characterization
risk (i.e., that the transaction is deemed not to create a 'lease' under commercial law) ' right? Well, maybe not.

A recent decision by the Federal District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin reminds us of the need to draft documents that protect against the possibility that a lease may be re-characterized as a 'sale' to which Article 2 of the UCC applies. In Key Equipment Finance, Inc. v. Pioneer Transportation, Ltd., 472 F. Supp. 2d 1131 (W.D. Wis. 2007), the court found that a transaction documented as a lease was instead a sale of goods with a reservation of a security interest and that Article 2 applied to the transaction. Although the court ultimately rejected the lessee's Article 2 defenses, it did consider them.

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