U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff in Manhattan set a March 19 trial date for trustee Irving Picard’s case against the Major League Baseball team owners after narrowing by two-thirds the $1 billion demanded by Picard from Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz. In an order published yesterday, Rakoff said he disagreed with Picard, who had said Rakoff couldn’t modify the confidentiality rules the trustee currently uses in bankruptcy court.
Read Bloomberg Businessweek report [...]

What do you do when your financial adviser becomes damaged goods? That’s surely on the minds of thousands of clients of firms like UBS Financial Services, which is embroiled in a recent trading scandal, and Bank of America Merrill Lynch, which is suffering myriad financial woes. If you’re concerned about whether an adviser’s parent firm is going to survive a crisis or if you’re not happy with your portfolio, there are some important questions to ask before you make a change to a new wealth manager. Read New York Times article here. [...]

The trustee charged with recovering assets lost in Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme is suing the Jewish Association for Services for the Aged for $5.2 million. The case, Picard v. Jewish Association, was filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York in Manhattan on Oct. 14. Read more in Jewish Week here. [...]

Access International Advisors Ltd., part of a $185 million lawsuit by the liquidator of Bernard Madoff’s firm, asked a judge to dismiss the case while citing a ruling that favored the owners of the New York Mets. Read Bloomberg Businessweek report [...]

Bernard Madoff’s daughter-in-law, whose husband committed suicide in the wake of his father’s exposure in a massive Wall Street fraud, holds Madoff responsible for her spouse’s death and said that if she saw him today, she would spit in his face. Read more on Reuters [...]

A U.S. district judge said he would take over a lawsuit by the liquidator of Bernard Madoff’s firm against investor Gerald Blumenthal to decide whether a trustee can demand the return of payments made by the confidence man’s brokerage to its clients. U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff said he would take 31 related suits out of bankruptcy court as well, “to the extent that the 31 cases that joined Blumenthal” raised the same issues. A bankruptcy judge could rule on remaining issues, Rakoff said in the Oct. 14 filing in Manhattan federal court. Read Bloomberg report [...]

Investors in 16 funds that channeled money into Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme asked a court to decide that they were “customers” eligible to claim money set aside for the confidence man’s victims. In a brief filed Oct. 14, the investors asked U.S. District Judge Denise Cote to reverse a bankruptcy court ruling that blocks them from claiming a share of the $8.7 billion recovered so far by Madoff bankruptcy trustee Irving Picard. In June, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Burton Lifland ruled them ineligible because they didn’t hold accounts directly with Madoff’s firm, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC. Read Bloomberg Businessweek report [...]