The trustee appointed to liquidate Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC is seeking the return of $255 million transferred from the firm in the months before its collapse to funds operated by Kingate Management Ltd.
Irving Picard, appointed under the Securities Investor Protection Act, filed a complaint Friday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York stating that transfers of $100 million to Kingate Global Fund Ltd. and $155 million to Kingate Euro Fund Ltd. from Madoff firm accounts in October and November were improper.
The “transfers are and continue to be customer property,” Picard’s lawyers at Baker & Hostetler LLP said. A call to Kingate’s offices in Hamilton, Bermuda, wasn’t immediately returned. The funds are registered in the British Virgin Islands.
