Bernie Madoff customers to recoup $498 million, payout tops $15 billion

Audio By Carbonatix

By Jonathan Stempel

NEW YORK (Reuters) -Former customers of the late Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff will recoup $498.3 million under a settlement on Wednesday with the liquidators of two Luxembourg funds, boosting their recovery to about $15.26 billion.

The Luxembourg Investment Fund and Luxembourg Investment Fund U.S. Equity Plus had invested exclusively with Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities for three years before Madoff’s firm collapsed in December 2008.

Irving Picard, the trustee liquidating Madoff’s firm, said the $498.3 million represents all transfers that the Luxembourg funds received from the firm.

The funds will also give the Madoff firm’s bankruptcy estate 15% of proceeds from their lawsuit in Luxembourg against the Swiss bank UBS.

They are expected to receive $45.1 million on their own claim against the estate. The funds did not admit wrongdoing.

Court approval is required, and a June 25 hearing has been scheduled.

A lawyer for the Luxembourg funds did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Prior to Wednesday’s settlement, Picard recovered $14.76 billion for Madoff customers, whose losses he has estimated at $17.5 billion. Payouts go to 2,656 customers whose claims he deemed valid.

The payouts are separate from the $4.3 billion awarded by the U.S. government-created Madoff Victim Fund to 40,930 individuals, schools, charities and pension plans.

These recipients included customers, and victims who lost money indirectly through Madoff, including in “feeder funds.”

Madoff concealed his fraud for decades before confessing to his sons one day after his firm’s 2008 Christmas party.

He pleaded guilty to 11 criminal charges and was sentenced to 150 years in prison, with the sentencing judge calling Madoff’s crimes “extraordinarily evil.”

Madoff died in prison at age 82 in April 2021.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New YorkEditing by Rod Nickel)