Banks Back Bid Against Cert In Madoff Trustee Suit

A group of banks has joined together to ask the U.S. Supreme Court not to hear a bid by the liquidation trustee for Bernie Madoff’s investment group to sue the banks for billions of dollars for what he says is their complicity in Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, according to a brief filed Tuesday. HSBC Bank PLC, UBS AG, UniCredit SpA and others banded together to fend off Supreme Court scrutiny of a June 2013 decision by the Second Circuit that found that the trustee, Irving H. Picard, could not sue for a wrong as the representative of a perpetrator of the wrongdoing, according to the filing. The banks argued that Picard hadn’t shown why the Securities Investor Protection Corp. should be permitted to step in and pursue litigation in markets that are already regulated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and others, according to the brief. More on Law360 here.