The trustee liquidating Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff’s firm has appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, aiming to revive lawsuits that seek billions of dollars from banks including JPMorgan Chase & Co. and HSBC Holdings Plc., Bloomberg News reported yesterday. Trustee Irving Picard contends in his suits that the banks ignored Madoff’s fraud for the sake of millions of dollars in fees. A federal appeals court in New York threw out the suits in June. The fraud, the biggest Ponzi scheme in U.S. history, cost thousands of investors $17 billion in lost principal and billions more in imaginary profits. Picard argues in his Supreme Court appeal, filed yesterday in Washington, D.C., that the appeals court improperly limited the power of trustees and the protections for customers under the U.S. Securities Investor Protection Act. The banks “are as responsible as Madoff for the enormous magnitude of customer losses,” Picard argued in court papers. High court review would potentially give defrauded investors a bigger pot from which to recover their claims. The case is Picard v. JPMorgan Chase & Co., 13-448.
