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Irving S. Picard, the trustee for Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities Inc., said that he will make an additional distribution of $505 million to customers, bringing the total to more than $5.4 billion, or almost 43 percent of approved claims, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The distribution, announced yesterday, will be the third by Picard. Including $806 million provided by the Securities Investor Protection Corp., Picard previously distributed just under $5 billion to customers. The bankruptcy court in New York will hold a hearing on March 13 to approve the new distribution to victims of Madoff’s $20 billion Ponzi scheme, the largest in U.S. history.

R. Allen Stanford’s former top accounting officers could face more than 20 years in prison when they are sentenced today for helping the Texas financier hide a Ponzi scheme that bilked investors of $7 billion, Bloomberg News reported today. Stanford’s ex-Chief Accounting Officer Gilbert Lopez and former Global Controller Mark Kuhrt were convicted by a jury in November of conspiring to hide an investment fraud built on bogus certificates of deposit at Antigua-based Stanford International Bank Ltd. Lopez and Kuhrt were the last two Stanford executives to be criminally tried for their roles in the scheme. The men were each found guilty of nine of 10 wire fraud counts and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

Former Arkansas and Michigan State football coach John L. Smith has been accused of using his employment contracts with the Razorbacks to defraud several of his creditors, according to two complaints filed this week in bankruptcy court, the Detroit Free Press reported yesterday. Smith filed for chapter 7 bankruptcy last year, claiming more than $40 million in liabilities stemming from failed real estate deals around Louisville. By doing so, Smith hoped to have those debts discharged so he can move on with his life. But the creditors are trying to prevent that by filing complaints that are tantamount to civil lawsuits. The U.S. Trustee's office is also investigating Smith for potential fraud and abuse of the bankruptcy system but has not filed a complaint, according to court filings. The creditors cite his unusual contract with the Razorbacks last year, in which 71 percent of his $850,000 salary was deferred until right after the 2012 season.

U.S. regulators are widening their probe of global interest-rate-rigging by scrutinizing what they claim is a pivotal role of two U.K. brokerage firms in the scandal, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The Justice Department and Commodity Futures Trading Commission are examining ICAP PLC and R.P. Martin Holdings Ltd., so-called interdealer brokers that are go-betweens for banks seeking buyers or sellers for hard-to-trade assets. The brokers, both with headquarters in London, also help some banks decide their submissions for the London interbank offered rate (Libor) and other benchmarks that underpin trillions of dollars in mortgages and other financial contracts.

The bankruptcy case of Ponzi schemer Scott Rothstein's law firm could be at its end if the trustee for now-defunct Rothstein Rosenfeldt Adler wins what is shaping up to be one of the biggest courtroom battles yet in the case, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported yesterday. Trustee Herbert Stettin submitted a liquidation plan on Tuesday to Bankruptcy Judge Raymond B. Ray that includes a proposed settlement calling for TD Bank to pay up to $72.4 million to cover investors' losses. TD Bank would admit no wrongdoing in its dealings with Rothstein and the settlement would block individual investors' lawsuits against the bank from going forward. Attorneys for some investors vowed to contest the settlement with TD Bank, which has been accused of allowing Rothstein's Ponzi scheme to flourish and covering up his lies. Pending lawsuits from investors are seeking more than $1 billion in compensatory and punitive damages against the bank.

Regulators leading the world-wide probe into rate-rigging allegations are expected to announce Wednesday a settlement of around £400 million ($630 million) with Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Banks across the world face a hefty bill for alleged attempts to manipulate Libor. More than a dozen banks remain under investigation and civil lawsuits are under way. The expected pact will make RBS the third giant global bank to agree to a deal with the U.S. Justice Department, Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the U.K. Financial Services Authority. Following settlements last year with Barclays PLC and UBS AG, regulators will have won penalties in the rate-rigging probe totaling more than $2.5 billion.

Credit Suisse Group Inc. lost its bid to be tried separately from convicted National Century Financial Enterprises Inc. co-founder Lance Poulsen in an upcoming $2 billion civil trial over fraud at the healthcare financier a decade ago, Reuters reported yesterday. The decision by U.S. District Judge James Graham means that more evidence harmful to the Swiss bank's defense against bondholders could be introduced at the trial, which is scheduled to begin on April 1. Credit Suisse was sued for fraud and conspiracy by the state of Arizona, AllianceBernstein Holding LP, Lloyds TSB Bank Plc, MetLife Inc., Allianz SE's Pimco unit and other investors that bought National Century notes from 1998 to 2002. These investors said that Credit Suisse sold the notes and defended their creditworthiness despite knowing that National Century misused investor funds and also missed red flags that Poulsen had been masterminding a $2.9 billion fraud. National Century had helped finance clinics, hospitals and other service providers and bought accounts receivable from them with money it got by selling notes to investors. But the Dublin, Ohio-based company filed for bankruptcy protection in November 2002, and several executives were later convicted of crimes.

Russell Wasendorf Sr., the founder of the bankrupt commodities firm Peregrine Financial Group Inc., was sentenced to 50 years in prison for what prosecutors said was a theft of more than $215 million from customers, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. Wasendorf used a printer, software and a post office box to create false bank statements and other documents to hide the evidence of his 20-year embezzlement starting in the early 1990s, prosecutors said. Assistant U.S. Attorney Peter Deegan told U.S. District Judge Linda Reade in court filings that Wasendorf deserved the maximum 50-year penalty because of the amount customers lost and the sophisticated nature of the crime. Wasendorf started stealing customer funds within two years of Peregrine’s original financing, using a copying machine to conceal his theft of $250,000 to keep his company afloat, the government said.

The stock of Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc fell 6 percent, the most in four months, as U.S. authorities push for criminal charges in the probe into allegations that Britain’s biggest publicly owned lender tried to rig interest rates, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The U.S. Justice Department has extended talks to press the Edinburgh-based bank for a guilty plea in any settlement. RBS may pay about 500 million pounds ($786 million) to U.S. and U.K. authorities to settle the claims as soon as next week. The fine would be the second-largest levied by regulators in their investigation into allegations that traders at the world’s biggest lenders manipulated submissions used to set the London interbank offered rate. UBS AG, Switzerland’s biggest lender, paid a $1.5 billion fine in December and its Japanese unit pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud in the U.S. in its December settlement.

Some of the more than $100 million Peregrine Financial's former chief executive stole from his brokerage's clients went to pay for his divorce settlement, the trustee of the now-bankrupt brokerage said in a lawsuit late Friday against the former wife, Reuters reported yesterday. The lawsuit demands the return of more than $2.9 million in divorce payments and the disallowance of the former wife's bankruptcy court claims for an additional $2.4 million, money she says is still owed her from the divorce. Russell Wasendorf Sr, the former CEO, has pleaded guilty to embezzlement and is in an Iowa jail awaiting sentencing this Thursday.