Judge: Madoff-related cases to be linked

A HIGH Court judge has made rulings aimed at a cost-effective and speedy resolution of a raft of legal actions brought here after more than one billion dollars of investor monies entrusted to the Irish arm of European banking giant HSBC ended up with now jailed US billion-dollar fraudster Bernard Madoff and his companies.

Mr Justice Frank Clarke remarked yesterday it seemed the investors had lost “very substantial” funds channelled to a “fictitious hedge fund” operated by Bernard Madoff Investment Securities LLC (BMIS) and other Madoff companies.

He made rulings effectively meaning, while key legal issues in the actions by mutual funds which used HSBC as a custodian will be first determined, all other cases by investors will be linked with those in a way intended to achieve the speediest resolution of all cases. A decision on the sequencing of the actions will be made later.