508
Opinion of the Court
ary rule at all. New York concedes that "the creditors of unclaimed distributions" held by depositories and custodian banks "are always unknown." Exceptions of Defendant New York 81. It argues, however, that "reconstruct[ion]" of "the debtor brokers' transactions" will lead to "creditor brokers that purchased the underlying securities and were underpaid the distributions." Id., at 80 (emphasis added). Because "the amount of time and resources that would be required to reconstruct the overpayment transactions would be very considerable," however, New York "has suggested the use of statistical sampling to prove that virtually all of the creditor brokers and banks recorded on the books of debtor brokers in New York have New York addresses." Ibid.
We overrule New York's exception. As an initial matter, New York's proposal rests on the dubious supposition that the relevant "creditors" under the primary rule are other brokers. We have already held that "creditors" are the parties to whom the intermediaries are contractually obligated to deliver unclaimed securities distributions. Accordingly, to the extent that beneficial owners are the relevant "creditors," New York's exception is inapposite.
Even if we indulge New York's premise that most creditors of New York brokers are in fact other New York brokers, the exception must fail. As the Master correctly observed: "[N]othing in the Court's jurisprudence . . . suggest[s] that New York can prevail by making a statistical showing that 'most' [creditor-brokers'] addresses are in New York." Report of Special Master 67. In Pennsylvania, we rejected a proposal practically identical to New York's. In that case, because Western Union's records frequently did not disclose a creditor's identity or last known address, the debtor's State of incorporation stood to "receive a much larger share of the unclaimed funds" under the secondary rule. 407 U. S., at 214. The plaintiff States urged us to define the creditor's residence according to a "presumption
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