An interesting article on the effect preferences and state law fraud statutes can have on recovery for the estate through analysis of the Madoff bankruptcy.
The Madoff trustee, Irving H. Picard, had sought to recover fictional profits paid out in the six years before the collapse, citing provisions of New York State law that allow for a six-year recovery window. The judge also threw out the trustee’s bid to recover so-called preference claims, the cash paid out to the NY Met’s owners in the final 90 days of the fraud.
By reducing the time window and eliminating preference claims actions that lawyers said would most likely apply to all the lawsuits the trustee has pending in Federal Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan the decision still “has significant potential ramifications that could affect recoveries as well as distributions” in the legal efforts to unwind Mr. Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, Mr. Picard said in a written statement released on Thursday.
Read the details of this action at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/30/business/madoff-trustee-says-mets-ruling-wont-be-as-bad-as-first-thought.html?_r=1
and
http://tech.mit.edu/V131/N41/long4.html