It’s been barely two months since the Madoff Five—the only employees of Bernard L. Madoff who have been convicted of crimes at trial—began serving their prison terms. The government’s chief turncoat in the case was Frank DiPascali, Jr., who served as Madoff’s right hand. He was scheduled to be sentenced this September for his role in what Judge Laura Taylor Swain called “the biggest Ponzi scheme known to man.” But fate has ruled otherwise. Frank DiPascali died on Thursday night, his attorney, Marc L. Mukasey, just told me. “He was proud of the work he had done to make amends,” says Mukasey, a partner at Bracewell & Giuliani LLP. “The family requests privacy at this time.” More in Forbes [...]

A Citigroup Inc. unit and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP must face claims they played a part in costing investors more than $1 billion in Bernard Madoff’s massive Ponzi scheme, an appeals court ruled. Investors in the Kingate Global and Euro funds, which fed money into Madoff’s firm, sued an offshore subsidiary of the New York-based bank and the accounting company for their roles in administering and auditing the funds. Several other entities must also face claims in the suit revived Thursday by a federal appeals court in Manhattan. More on Bloomberg Business [...]

The trustee unwinding Bernard Madoff’s $17.5 billion fraud is passing the halfway mark in his quest to repay victims, after an appeals court ruling freed up more cash. Former customers of the convicted con man are set to receive a new round of payments totaling $1.25 billion — the second largest such distribution since the biggest Ponzi scheme in U.S. history unraveled more than six years ago. The payout, which needs approval from the federal bankruptcy court in Manhattan, will boost the amount returned to victims to about $8.22 billion — or more than half the lost principal of approved claims totaling $13.6 billion, the trustee, Irving Picard, said Wednesday in a statement. More on Bloomberg Business [...]

Federal regulators on Tuesday proposed rules, more than four years in the making, to provide greater consumer protection for retirement savings, requiring a broader group of investment professionals to act in their customers’ best interests when handling their retirement money. The financial services industry can be a minefield for ordinary investors, who often cannot tell whether their advisers are putting the investors’ interests first; the legal term for this is fiduciary duty. The rules, proposed by the Labor Department, which oversees retirement accounts, are part of the Obama administration’s declared mission to support the middle class. The proposed rules would eliminate some of the loopholes that allow brokers to avoid acting as fiduciaries when providing advice on retirement money held inside accounts like 401(k)’s and in individual retirement accounts, which hold roughly $7 trillion, as estimated by the Federal Reserve. More in the New York Times [...]

Plaintiffs whose monies were invested in four funds created by the Fairfield Greenwich Group — which investments FGG largely invested and lost in the Madoff Ponzi scheme — recovered over $80 million as a result of a settlement agreement with FGG defendants approved by Judge Victor Marrero of the Southern District of New York in 2013. Those plaintiffs, who moved for class certification in their case against FGG and others in January 2012, are now one step closer to tapping into another source of recovery: providers of services to those FGG funds. The providers include several entities of hedge fund management powerhouse Citco, which supplied administrator and other services to the funds, as well as two PricewaterhouseCoopers entities, as providers of independent auditing services to those funds. More on Law360 [...]

A fund that invested exclusively in Bernard Madoff’s massive Ponzi scheme has struck a deal that frees up $93 million to pay back victims of the fraud. Irving Picard, the official tasked with liquidating Mr. Madoff’s defunct firm, said in a Monday court filing that Defender Limited and related entities have agreed to return $93 million they received from investing with Mr. Madoff. Under the terms of the deal, the amount will be withheld from a $522.8 million recovery that Defender is in line to receive for money it lost from the fraud. The deal is one of several Mr. Picard has struck with so-called feeder funds, which pooled investors’ cash and then funneled the money to Mr. Madoff. Phony returns were later paid out to the feeder funds, which then distributed the money among their individual investors. More in the Wall Street Journal [...]

NEW YORK — The trustee finding money for victims of Bernard Madoff’s epic fraud asked the US Supreme Court on Tuesday to overturn a court ruling that he said may prevent the recovery of nearly $4 billion, may reward those who unwittingly profited from the Ponzi scheme at the expense of those who did not, and may have far-reaching effects for future fraud victims. Lawyers for the trustee, Irving Picard, said the December ruling by the Second US Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan threatens a century’s worth of law that steered how courts respond to the legal aftermath of Ponzi schemes. ‘‘Denying review would only perpetuate confusion and uncertainty at a time when investors can afford neither,’’ the legal papers said, adding that the 2008 financial crisis revealed investors are victims of a remarkable number of financial frauds. More on Boston.com [...]