%1

A Miami federal judge has given TD Bank until Thursday to pay $67 million to a group of investors in disbarred attorney Scott Rothstein's failed $1.2 billion Ponzi scheme, the Daily Business Review reported today. U.S. District Judge Marcia G. Cooke's order could finally bring an end to a three-year battle over the $32 million in compensatory damages and $35 million in punitive damages awarded by a jury to Texas-based Coquina Investments LLC. TD Bank's motion asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit to stay Cooke's order was denied by a three-judge panel on Friday.

The Minnesota Supreme Court on Feb. 18 rejected the “Ponzi Scheme Presumption” that had been the foundation for so many “claw back” claims against banks and other financial institutions receiving credit repayments from the likes of Tom Petters, Corey Johnston and others, according to a client note from Briggs and Morgan. In its decision in Finn v. Alliance Bank, the state's high court rejected the receiver's "Ponzi scheme presumption" theory by which the receiver would have had the courts strip the banks of traditional defenses. In effect, the court ruled that lenders are entitled to summary judgment when the transactions at issue involve legitimate loans that were repaid in the normal course, according to the analysis. Click here to read the court opinion: http://www.mncourts.gov/opinions/sc/current/OPA121930-021815.pdf

Victims of Bernard Madoff's massive fraud are not entitled to inflation or interest adjustments on their claims, a federal appeals court ruled on Friday, in a decision that could speed the return of more than $1 billion to the swindler's former customers, Reuters reported on Friday. Irving Picard, the trustee liquidating Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, said that he will seek permission from a federal bankruptcy judge to distribute that sum, on top of $7.2 billion paid out so far, as soon as possible. Picard has kept the additional money in reserve because of litigation over whether former customers deserved "time-based" damages on claims arising from Madoff's Ponzi scheme that was uncovered in 2008. In Friday's decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit said that because the Securities Investor Protection Act, a federal law that helps victims of failed brokerages, did not address such damages, Picard had the flexibility to choose the fairest method to determine the size of valid claims.

Former billionaire Samuel Wyly was sued by his ex-wife over claims he hid stock in companies he controlled during their 1991 divorce, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. Wyly, who helped build companies including arts-and-crafts retailer Michaels Stores Inc., filed for chapter 11 protection last year after losing a fraud suit to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. During the SEC trial, the U.S. alleged that Sam Wyly and his brother Charles hid a bulk of their holdings offshore. Torie Steele, formerly known as Victoria Lee Wyly, sued Sam Wyly Monday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Dallas seeking 50 percent of any stock that wasn’t disclosed during the divorce. She claims the undeclared stock was hidden offshore or placed with other people to deceive the court. Steele asked for a new trial to determine what the stock’s worth.