South Carolina Business Law Blog

By Jessie King On June 11, 2010, Governor Sanford signed into law S452, a bill amending the South Carolina Surface Water Withdrawal and Reporting Act, §49-4-10 et seq. (Supp 2008) (the “Act”). The law takes effect on January 1, 2011. The amendments to the Act are designed to stop the taking of water from South Carolina in unlimited quantities, protect existing water users, and maintain seasonal river water flows. The amended Act creates a regulatory permitting system for water withdrawal. The need to regulate water withdrawals came to a head recently after recurring droughts, legal battles with neighboring states over shared water supplies, and population growth. Prior to the amendment, persons wishing to take millions of gallons of water out of South Carolina rivers and lakes needed only to “register” with the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) , report the quantity of water withdrawn and the method for measuring the quantity, and notify D...

Governor Sanford recently signed three bills making changes to the South Carolina Probate Code . Summaries of these bills, provided by JP Lee , are set out below. H3803(Signed by the Governor on June 7, 2010), full text here Colloquially known as the “Summons Bill” among South Carolina trust and estate practitioners, the new law makes certain procedural amendments to the South Carolina Probate Code, and clarifies that petitions required or authorized by the Probate Code now require a summons in addition to the actual petition. Previously many sections in the South Carolina Probate Code, such as the petition for allowance of a creditor’s claim at South Carolina Code §62-3-806, required only a “petition”, with no mention of a summons. This caused confusion among laypersons and practitioners, as some Probate Judges required the serving of a summons when a petition was filed, despite no express statutory requirement for same. The new law clarifies that effective June 7, 2010, peti...

Governor Sanford has signed a bill recently passed by the SC General Assembly making several notable changes to the SC Textiles Communities Revitalization Act ("Act"). The Act provides tax credits for expenditures related to the rehabilitation of buildings in South Carolina previously used as textile manufacturing facilities. The amendments address several concerns raised by tax credit investors and others in the tax credit industry. Most notably, it makes the credits easier to specially allocate among partners in a partnership or limited liability company, adds transition rules for projects that were acquired or commenced prior to previous amendments in 2008, and allows the credits to be used against SC insurance premium taxes. The text of the bill (S728)is available here . Thanks to Chris Rogers for bringing this legislation to the Blog's attention.

The South Carolina Supreme Court determined that an appraiser report lacking "normalization adjustments" failed to meet the valuation standards agreed to by the parties, and warranted reversal of the trial court's order approving the valuation. In Blackburn v. TKT and Associates , two corporate shareholders filed a dissolution action alleging that two other shareholders were inappropriately taking the profits of the corporation in the form of excessive salaries. Following a bench trial, the trial court agreed that the defendant shareholders had "improperly drained the assets" of the corporation, determined that the defendant shareholders should pay plaintiff shareholders the fair value of their shares, and ordered an appraisal. The parties chose an appraiser, and selected the "income approach" method for valuing the corporation. The terms of the appraiser's engagement further provided that the appraisal would be done in accordance with the S...