The trustee liquidating Bernard L. Madoff’s defunct firm must publish the results of his probe in the case after spending more than two years and almost $300 million on it, a lawyer for Madoff investors said.
“The trustee has provided none of this information to the customers, to whom he owes a fiduciary duty,” the lawyer, Helen Chaitman, said in a filing yesterday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan on behalf of 1,200 Madoff investors. “The customers now move to compel him to fulfill his statutory obligation.”
Trustee Irving Picard, appointed after Madoff’s December 2008 arrest, has “represented” that he exhaustively investigated the Madoff firm, pursuing its property and tracing customer deposits and withdrawals, Chaitman wrote. Firms retained by the trustee were paid more than $288 million over two years, she said, citing government documents.
Amanda Remus, a Picard spokeswoman, declined to comment.
The trustee has filed more than 1,000 lawsuits seeking to recoup customers’ money. He said this month in a filing that he had recovered $7.6 billion, or 44 percent of the principal lost.
The case is Securities Investor Protection Corp. v. Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, 08-01789, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).
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