A new Senate Bill making a further update to defining a mandatory complex business case for referral to the Business Court was filed and has begun to move.  Senate Bill 435 sponsored by Bob Rucho and Tamara Barringer who you may remember from last session's Business Court Modernization have an additional tweak this session. The bill would require that for mandatory designation to the Business Court a tax contestation must involve at least $5,000 in controversy.

The bill was filed last month and referred to the Senate Rules Committee which used to be where bad (and some good) bills went to die, but this session the Rules Committee is also the staging area for all bills that will receive committee action as well, giving the Senate Rules Committee Chairman total power over the flow of legislation in that chamber.  The bill is now in the Senate Judiciary 1 Committee and we expect it will receive consideration soon.

We'll keep you posted on any changes, but you can check out the bill here: http://www.ncleg.net/Sessions/2015/Bills/Senate/PDF/S435v1.pdf