The trustee seeking money for victims of Bernard L. Madoff’s multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme was barred on Monday from blocking a $410 million settlement resolving New York State’s claims against a hedge fund manager, J. Ezra Merkin, who was accused of secretly steering client money to Mr. Madoff. The trustee, Irving H. Picard, had contended that the settlement with New York’s attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman, interfered with his exclusive right to seek money for Mr. Madoff’s victims. More in the New York Times [...]
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Judge Rakoff’s decision yesterday on certain open issues relating to the safe harbor provisions of 546(e) etc, can be found by clicking here. [...] Several investors from South Florida were ensnared by Bernard Madoff’s epic fraud. None of them (or those from any state) can hold the Securities and Exchange Commission responsible for failing to expose his Ponzi scheme, a federal appeals court said Wednesday. The ruling by a three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan followed a similar decision by a San Francisco-based appeals court in January. Both rejected lawsuits by investors seeking to make the agency pay for failing to discover the fraud. More on CBS Miami [...] Morgan Stanley broker Douglas Greenberg recently suffered a fate that is increasingly befalling advisers. Greenberg was fined $10,000 after he traded securities in a client account in 2010 without written instructions from the client or the firm to do so, according to a Financial Industry Regulatory Authority settlement dated March 27. More on Reuters [...] Charged with trying to prevent the next Enron or Bernie Madoff scandal, the Securities and Exchange Commission hasn’t kept close enough tabs on its own financial books. In fact, a recent audit of its bookkeeping identified two “serious deficiencies,” the accounting equivalent of a failing grade. Some areas of internal fiscal controls were so lacking, investigators said, that $42 million wasn’t reported on SEC’s ledgers, and $5 million worth of equipment was purchased but never used until a year later. More in the Washington Times [...] R. Allen Stanford’s investors may recoup some of their losses more than four years after the Stanford Group Co. founder was sued by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and put out of business. Ralph Janvey, the receiver appointed by a federal judge in 2009 to marshal and liquidate Stanford’s personal and business assets, today asked permission to make a $55 million interim distribution to about 17,000 claimants, or about 1 cent for each of the $5.1 billion lost in the fraud scheme. More on Bloomberg [...] A new film has been accepted by the Tribecca Film Festival in NY. The title is “In God We Trust” and it “stars” the private secretary for Bernard Madoff. The secretary has been co-operating with the Justice Department and has been a useful source for tracking those who met with Madoff over the years. The film crew has interviewed a number of Madoff victims. Click here for more [...] R. Allen Stanford’s investors may now be able to recoup some of their losses more than four years after the Stanford Group Co. founder was sued by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and put out of business. Ralph Janvey, the receiver appointed by a federal judge to marshal and liquidate Stanford’s personal and business assets in February 2009, is set today to ask permission to make a $55 million interim distribution, about one penny for each of the $5.1 billion dollars lost in the fraud scheme. The proposed payout trails the more than $5.4 billion paid to victims of Bernard L. Madoff, who was arrested in December 2008, about $4.9 billion paid clients of the MF Global Inc. brokerage after its parent MF Global Holdings Ltd. failed in October 2011, and the $123 million interim distribution for victims of Peregrine Financial Group Inc. founder Russell Wasendorf, who prosecutors last year said stole $215 million. More on Bloomberg [...] Victims of Bernard Madoff’s investment fraud have lost their bid to sue the Securities and Exchange Commission for negligence in failing to uncover the swindler’s Ponzi scheme. On Wednesday, a federal appeals court in New York upheld the dismissal of lawsuits against the securities regulator brought by Madoff investors. The court said the SEC’s actions and “regrettable inaction” were protected by a law that shields federal agencies from liability. More on Reuters [...] A federal appeals court ruled on Wednesday that Bernard L. Madoff‘s investors cannot sue the Securities and Exchange Commission for not uncovering his fraud, but at the same time blasted the agency for its failings. “Despite our sympathy for plaintiffs’ predicament (and our antipathy for the S.E.C.’s conduct),” the investors claims are barred because of a law protecting government agencies from lawsuits related to their use of investigatory powers, the United States Appeals Court for the Second Circuit said. More in the New York Times [...] |
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