HSBC gets more time in Madoff case

A HIGH Court judge has permitted the Irish arm of European banking giant HBSC to refrain from specifying — at this stage — the capacity in which hundreds of millions of investment monies were passed on by it to companies controlled by US fraudster Bernard Madoff.

Mr Justice Frank Clarke, who is case managing 47 actions brought over the payment of huge sums to Madoff companies, accepted arguments by HSBC’s Irish arm it is not yet in a position to set out — in its defence to actions by two sub-funds — whether certain monies were passed by it to Madoff companies as sub-custodian, broker/dealer or other.

In those circumstances, the judge said he would allow HSBC Institutional Trust Services (Ireland) Ltd (HITSI), Grand Canal Square, Dublin, to amend its defence to the two actions so as to plead it cannot yet say the category via which Madoff companies received funds from HITSI.