Some Compensation
Canonica has said his clients have received nothing while other Geneva investment firms that invested with Madoff have been offered compensation. Notz Stucki & Cie in 2009 pledged to return as much as 120 million Swiss francs to customers and Union Bancaire Privee about $700 million the same year.
They are among at least seven firms in the region that lost as much as $7 billion in the fraudulent scheme that cost investors worldwide about $65 billion.
Charles Poncet, who represented the Aurelia executives when the charges were filed in 2009 and has since stepped back from the case, said the case is without merit.
“This is a ridiculous case brought by an overeager prosecutor who thinks that making a bad investment can be a crime,” he said in an interview.
Irving Picard, the trustee liquidating Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, has recovered more than $9.8 billion, or 56 percent, of the $17 billion in claims, and distributed almost $6 billion of that. Picard is holding back about $4.3 billion because of ongoing appeals and related disputes.
Geneva Reputation
Madoff’s deception was a blow to Geneva’s reputation as a safe place to do business and the trials are an unwelcome reminder at a time when the city’s financial community has other challenges.
The fraud “was a shock as Geneva is very much old money, so credibility and prestige are very important,” said Stephane Garelli, a professor at IMD business school in Lausanne, Switzerland. “It was a bad moment for a lot of people in Geneva because they didn’t show very good judgment -- and today people will say ‘let’s turn the page, let’s forget about that, we have enough on our plate in future with banking secrecy and other things.”
Madoff Trials In Geneva Loom Years After Fraudster Confessed
November 13, 2014
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