Opinion ID: 693043
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Fund Ownership

Text: 11 Plaintiffs claim that the fund was the property of the officers and directors as the Agreement constituted an escrow or guaranty agreement. 6 Under Florida law, an escrow is established by an instrument embodying conditions mutually beneficial to both parties ... and it must be communicated to and deposited with a third party. Aberbach v. Wekiva Assocs., 735 F.Supp. 1032, 1035 (S.D.Fla.1990) (quoting Smith v. Macbeth, 119 Fla. 796, 161 So. 721, 724 (1935)). The third party must not itself be involved in the transaction. E.g., Fleischman v. Department of Professional Regulation, 441 So.2d 1121, 1123 (Fla. 3d Dist.Ct.App.1983). Upon delivery of the res to a third person in escrow, the grantor by his act of delivery loses all control over the res. E.g., Aberbach, 735 F.Supp. at 1035. 12 The facts in this case do not support the contention that the Agreement was an escrow agreement. The directors and officers were not parties to the Agreement; the Law Firm, who held the fund in a trust account, was not a disinterested third party to the Agreement but rather a party to the Contract; moreover, the word escrow never appears in the Agreement. Nor did CenTrust lose control over the fund; it retained the rights to add, substitute, value, invest, sell, dispose of, and audit fund assets. 7