Latest Settlement Boosts Madoff Victims Payout to 72 Cents on the Dollar

For all the drama, the Madoff fiasco, helped by unprecedented clawbacks, has resulted in victims of Bernie being reimbursed for 72 cents on the dollar of principal invested. Some of you have lost more than 28 cents on the dollar during the past month.

The latest settlement was with the Irish Investment Fund, who was accused of helping ‘open up the floodgates’ for European cash to invest with evil Bernie. They settled out of court for $687 million — the largest settlement in 6 years.

Thanks to the tremendous work of Picard, to date, $12.7b of $17.5b of principal has been recovered.

The deal “is the latest in a series of highly successful negotiations and mediations,” Oren Warshavsky, one said Picard’s lawyers at Baker& Hostetler LLP, said in a statement. Two recent settlement with funds related to Thema put total recoveries since June at more than $1 billion, he said.

Wait, it gets better. The US Department of Justice will set up a $4 billion fund to compensate the victims, essentially making them whole.

The trustees who’ve been toiling away to recover the money are reportedly getting paid $850 per hour — amounting to well over $1b in fees.

The good news? Zero dollars come from the victims, instead from a fund overseen by SIPC designed to support customers of failed broker dealers.

In other words, the lawyer fees are being booted by tax payers.