Ten years after its creation in the aftermath of the largest Ponzi fraud in history, the Madoff Victim Fund announced in December 2023 its 9th round of distributions. This round has now commenced. Our clients will receive an additional 2.65% reimbursement to offset the losses incurred from the horrendous financial crimes committed by Bernard Madoff. This will bring them, 15 years after Madoff turned himself in and confessed to fraud, to a total compensation of 91% on their fraud loss. Furthermore, the Madoff Victim Fund has indicated that there will be one more and final residual distribution before the end of 2024. This exceeds our earlier expectations.
Background
The Madoff Victim Fund (“MVF”) itself was created through the efforts of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, which successfully forfeited a series of assets involved in the securities fraud. The fund began its activity with capital amounting to USD 2.35 billion in November 2013.
The fund’s capital was further increased to over USD 4 billion in January 2014, due to additional proceeds materializing from a payment by JP Morgan Chase Bank. This payment was part of a settlement agreement reached between the bank and the U.S. Department of Justice to avoid criminal charges.
November 2013 marked the beginning of Deminor’s MVF claim filing and monitoring project.
In under 2.5 months, Deminor was engaged by approximately 4,000 claimants from 46 countries spanning 6 continents to aid in gathering the necessary documentation and subsequently filing claims with the MVF.
Nine Rounds of Distributions in Six Years
The MVF’s claim filing deadline passed in 2014, but it was not until November 2017 that the first round of distribution of the loss recovery occurred with an initial distribution totaling 25% of investor losses. Eight more rounds of distributions have since followed, with the latest round being commenced in December 2023.
This last round, with an additional 2.65% compensation on fraud losses, has raised our clients 88.35% loss recovery to a 91% loss recovery.
The graph below illustrates data extracted from the MVF website, presenting the different rounds and corresponding percentages of loss recovery.
Source: https://madoffvictimfund.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Chart-2-D9.jpg
Anticipation of the Tenth and Final Round
We anticipate that a tenth round of distributions will commence before the end of 2024. This will mark the ultimate and conclusive round of residual distributions from the MVF. Following this distribution, it is expected that that MVF will likely come to a conclusion.
This final round is expected to bring our clients to a recovery ratio of slightly above 91 percent.
