Gibraltar Court of Appeal will decide next week whether $1m of disputed funds linked to the Madoff financial scandal

Gibraltar Chronicle - The Independent Daily First Published 1801: "Court of Appeal will decide next week whether $1m of disputed funds linked to the Madoff financial scandal should be used to cover costs in a legal row over the fate of a larger $73m pot held in Gibraltar.

Irving Picard, the US trustee tasked with recovering the assets of disgraced financier Bernard Madoff, wants to claw back the money and use it to compensate victims of Madoff’s fraud.

But the action in Gibraltar is being contested by four firms which also lay claim to the funds.


Two of those firms – Vizcaya Partners and Zeus Partners – secured a ruling from the Supreme Court earlier this year to release a total of $1m to cover their legal costs.

It is this decision that lawyers for Mr Picard will appeal next week.

The $73m is what is left in Gibraltar of a $150m wire transfer made by Bernard Madoff Investment Securities to a local bank in 2008.

The money is now under the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court while lawyers argue who gets to keep it. That question has yet to be resolved before the Gibraltar court."