LEGAL FALLOUT
Madoff case shows investors how to keep Ponzi profits
Court decisions have favoured investors who profited from the scam — not Bernard Madoff’s victims
New York — The legal fallout from Bernard Madoff’s fraud includes an ironic twist: a road map for investors wanting to hold on to profits that seem too good to be true. In the eight years since Madoff’s arrest, court decisions have favoured investors who profited from the scam, damping the hopes of trustee Irving Picard to return more to Madoff’s victims, who had lost $17.5bn in principal, legal experts say. At the core of the disputes is how far Picard can go to make the scheme’s investors whole. "The rulings all lower the risk associated with investing in something that might be a Ponzi scheme," said Anthony Casey, a University of Chicago law school professor. "Some of these were inevitable conclusions of law. The courts weren’t necessarily being lenient to the big institutions. It just happens to help the wealthier investors." Picard and his team of lawyers have recovered about 65 cents on the dollar — more than expected after the collapse of the biggest Ponzi scheme in US histor...
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