NEW YORK — Victims of Bernard Madoff will get back more money after the U.S. Supreme Court said Monday that it wouldn’t hear a challenge to the way cash recovered in the Ponzi scheme was divided.
The decision by the justices to disregard the appeal on the so-called net-equity method frees up trustee Irving Picard to disburse hundreds of millions of dollars to victims with approved claims.
Picard’s net-equity method calculates client losses as the difference between the amounts that they deposited and the amounts they withdrew from Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC before Madoff ’s fraud was uncovered.
Picard is attempting to recover money from Madoff clients who took, by Picard’s estimation, too much from the investment company.
At the same time Picard was celebrating his tactical victory with the high court he was also preparing to do battle with New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman over a $410 million settlement he announced involving philanthropist and investor J. Ezra Merkin.
Schneiderman said he had settled his Martin Act lawsuit against Merkin, who was sued in 2009 for purportedly not disclosing that four of his investment feeder funds were essentially controlled by Madoff. The state also sued to recover hundreds of millions of dollars in fees Merkin received.
“Mr. Merkin is pleased to have achieved a resolution that is fair to his investors, many of whom are friends and institutions that he and his family have cared about deeply for generations,” said Merkin’s attorney, Andrew Levander.
Schneiderman’s lawsuit - started by then-Attorney General Andrew Cuomo in 2009 - invoked state law to get money back for Merkin’s clients. But Picard is concerned the state settlement might affect funds that should be put in the pot for all Madoff victims in federal bankruptcy court.
Picard was appointed trustee under the direction of the nonprofit Securities Investor Protection Corp., which is allowed to advance individual investors up to $500,000 each for losses. So far Securities Investor Protection has agreed to give investors $801 million. Picard has recovered close to $10 billion. But because of appeals and other legal challenges Picard has only been able to give back $332.6 million, or 4.6 cents on the dollar, for 1,230 claimants.
However, with his hands freed by the Supreme Court action, Picard can move ahead with another distribution. Picard may also be able to start sending out billions of dollars more if certain appeals are not filed by July 16, Securities Investor Protection officials said.
Under the intricacies of federal law, only Merkin’s four feeder funds, and not their hundreds of individual investors, are considered Madoff customers eligible for Securities Investor Protection recovery.
Business, Pages 26 on 06/27/2012