A U.K. court froze the assets of Bernard Madoff associate Sonja Kohn, the former chairwoman of Bank Medici AG, who a judge said made at least $56 million introducing clients to the convicted fraudster. Liquidators of Madoff’s estate are pursuing Kohn and the directors of Madoff Securities International Ltd., the company’s English unit, for the return of assets. Read Bloomberg Businessweek report here. [...]
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There is one promise that Bernard L. Madoff made to his customers that can be honored. The trustee under the Securities Investor Protection Act could allow claims for losses from Mr. Madoff’s multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme to be based on investments in United States Treasury bills. Read more in the New York Times here. [...] HSBC Holdings Plc amended its settlement with investors in an Irish fund who lost their money in Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme after the bank’s original offer was rejected by a U.S. judge in September. The amended settlement, which will be filed to New York’s southern district court in Manhattan today, still offers shareholders in Thema International Fund Plc as much as $62.5 million, while addressing the court’s earlier concerns, the London-based lender said today in an e-mailed statement. Read Bloomberg Businessweek report [...] Charles Schwartz, his voice quivering with emotion, had finished asking the judge for a sentence Tuesday that would be about 5½ years less than the minimum federal sentencing guidelines recommend in his case. The 58-year-old former owner of Allied Health Care Services Inc., a durable medical equipment corporation based in Orange, had admitted last April to cheating dozens of financial institutions out of $80 million during an eight-year medical equipment leasing Ponzi scheme. But U.S. District Judge Susan Wigenton explained she “struggle(d) to find a real justification” for giving Schwartz a shorter sentence. Then she imposed a prison term of more than 16 years, one well within the guidelines’ range. A Bedford-based Internet trading corporation is actually a Ponzi scheme run by a Canadian resident who used it to pay off previous investors and build up his Ontario horse farm, according to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Read more in the New Hampshire Business Review [...] As Madoff investors go John and Cathy Dalton might count themselves lucky. They invested $655,500 in 2000 and $40,000 in January 2003. Between 2002 and 2008 they made 47 withdrawals totalling $572,900. In May 2009 they received $122,600 funded by the SIPC. Being even in the last decade was actually pretty good performance. Still there were tax issues. Every year they received detailed statements showing the gains and loss and interest and dividends from the fictitious investments that Mr. Madoff was pretending to make for them. They dutifully reported these amounts on their federal and state tax returns and paid the appropriate taxes. Read Forbes report [...] A top Securities and Exchange Commission lawyer is leaving the regulator to serve as the new head of the criminal division for the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan. Lorin L. Reisner, the deputy director for the SEC’s division of enforcement, is expected to be named the latest chief of the criminal division for the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York “sometime in the new year,” according to people familiar with the matter. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s internal watchdog has come under scrutiny for comments he made in a 75-minute videotaped interview about the agency and the stock market to a man who markets a “crash-proof retirement” plan through the Internet and a paid radio program. Read Bloomberg Businessweek report here. [...] A group of House members who represent districts with high concentrations of Stanford investors sent a letter to SIPC Chairman Orlan Johnson Tuesday, urging executives at the industry-funded insurance pool to make a decision. The Securities and Exchange Commission dithered on the issue of SIPC coverage for more than two years before finally deciding in June that coverage was warranted. The SEC decision came after pressure from members of Congress, which was examining the SEC’s poor handling of the Stanford investigation. Read Houston Chronicle report here. Fees for liquidating the MF Global Inc. broker-dealer may reach $100 million in a year, based on costs to wind down two other brokerages — Lehman Brothers Inc. and Bernard Madoff’s firm — and lawyers’ estimates. Read Bloomberg Businessweek report [...] |
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