European banks ABN AMRO and Natixis today rejected claims by the trustee seeking to recoup more than $1 billion for victims of the convicted US swindler Bernard Madoff.
Irving Picard, the trustee for the liquidation of Bernard L Madoff Investment Securities LLC (BLMIS) filed complaints against Citigroup's Citibank, Natixis SA, Fortis, ABN AMRO, Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, Nomura and Merrill Lynch, now owned by Bank of America.
"Natixis denies the allegations made and intends to take all steps to defend its position and preserve its rights," the French bank said. State-owned bank ABN AMRO, which has merged with Fortis, would defend itself "vigorously" and was still waiting to receive the complaint before commenting further, an ABN spokesman said.
BBVA declined to comment.
The other banks were not immediately available to comment.
The financial institutions received transfers of money from (BLMIS) through numerous Madoff feeder funds when they either knew or should have known of Madoff's fraud, the trustee said yesterday.
"Natixis has acted in good faith at all times and has not benefited from, nor did it assist in or have knowledge of, the fraud carried out by Bernard Madoff. On the contrary, Natixis has itself started a criminal action in Paris," Natixis said.
Swiss bank Union Bancaire Privee (UBP) and a related fund, M-Invest Limited, have settled for $500 million, the trustee said on Monday, while some US firms or executives reached settlements earlier this year.
Mr Picard is also trying to recover money for investors with a claim against Swiss bank UBS for $2.5 billion and is seeking $9 billion in a US suit against HSBC, which says the claim is unfounded.
Madoff (72) is serving a 150-year prison sentence after admitting to orchestrating a worldwide fraud of about $65 billion.
So far, Mr Picard and his team of lawyers have recovered about $2.6 billion.
Reuters