Securities Investor Protection Corp. v. Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC

987 F. Supp. 2d 311, 2013 WL 6301415
District Court, S.D. New York·Decided December 5, 2013·No. No. 12 MC 115(JSR)·Published·Cited by 5 cases

Opinion

OPINION AND ORDER

JED S. RAKOFF, District Judge.

In the complaints underlying the instant consolidated proceeding, Irving H. Picard (the “Trustee”), the trustee appointed under the Securities Investor Protection Act (“SIPA”), 15 U.S.C. § 78aaa et seq., to administer the estate of Bernard L. Ma-doff Investment Securities LLC (“Madoff Securities”), has asserted common law claims, such as aiding and abetting.fraud and unjust enrichment, against various “feeder fund” defendants described below. These defendants now seek to dismiss the Trustee’s suits against them, arguing that the Trustee has no standing to bring these actions.

The Court assumes familiarity with the underlying facts of Madoff Securities’ fraud and ensuing bankruptcy, and recounts here only those facts that are relevant to the instant issues. The defendants here seeking dismissal of the Trustee’s complaints include principals and affiliates of the so-called “feeder funds,” investment funds that pooled their customers’ assets for investment with Madoff Securities. In essence, the Trustee alleges that these individuals and entities knew of Madoff Securities’ fraud but looked the other way because they received substantial fees and other payments from Madoff Securities. The Trustee alleges that their actions (or inaction) allowed Madoff Securities’ Ponzi scheme to continue and .grow, thereby causing harm to those Madoff Securities’ customers who were duped by the scheme. Based on these allegations, the Trustee seeks to recover from these third-party defendants such monies as he believes are owed to Madoff Securities’ customers for distribution as part of the Madoff Securities liquidation.

Defendants, have moved to dismiss the Trustee’s complaints in their respective [314]*314adversary proceedings, arguing that (1) the Trustee lacks standing to assert these common law claims, and (2) that, if the Trustee has standing to pursue these claims, the claims are precluded nonetheless by the Securities Litigation Uniform Standards Act of 1998 (“SLUSA”), 15 U.S.C. § 78bb. Defendants previously moved to withdraw the reference to the Bankruptcy Court, and the Court granted that motion with respect to these two issues on a consolidated basis. Order at 4-5, No. 12 Misc. 115, ECF No. 114 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 22, 2012). The Court also withdrew the reference on the issue of whether the “insider exception” to New York’s doctrine of in pan delicto applies to the Trustee’s claims brought against Deborah Madoff and Stephanie Mack, the wives of Madoff s two sons. See id. at 5. The Court received briefing on each of these issues from defendants, the Trustee, and the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (“SIPC”), and heard oral argument on October 15, 2012. This Opinion and Order addresses the relevant issues in turn and directs further proceedings upon return to the Bankruptcy Court.

As an initial matter, the Trustee previously raised in similar actions many of the arguments he advances in the instant proceeding. In Picard v. HSBC Bank PLC, 454 B.R. 25 (S.D.N.Y.2011), this Court rejected those arguments and found that the Trustee lacked standing to assert common law claims against HSBC Bank and other third-party defendants, but the Trustee nonetheless reasserted these arguments in the instant proceeding, seeking either to have this Court reconsider them or to preserve them for possible appeal. However, in June 2013, after the instant matter had been fully briefed and argued, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed this Court’s decision in HSBC as well as Judge McMahon’s similar decision in Picard v. JPMorgan Chase & Co., 460 B.R. 84 (S.D.N.Y.2011), and held that the Trustee lacks standing to assert common law claims on behalf of either Madoff Securities or its customers against alleged aiders-and-abettors of Madoff Securities’ fraud. See Picard v. JP Morgan Chase & Co. (In re Bernard L. Madoff Inv. Sec. LLC.) (“JP Morgan II”), 721 F.3d 54 (2d Cir.2013).

The decision of the Court of Appeals, as applied to the instant matter, disposes of many of the Trustee’s arguments here. As the Court of Appeals noted, the Trustee’s authority to bring actions such as the instant cases turns on the prudential rule of standing that “[a] party must ‘assert his own legal rights and interests, and cannot rest his claim to relief on the legal rights or interests of third parties.’ ” JP Morgan II, 721 F.3d at 58 (quoting Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 499, 95 S.Ct. 2197, 45 L.Ed.2d 343 (1975)). Thus, the first question in determining whether the Trustee may assert his desired claims is whether the Trustee may bring these claims on behalf of Madoff Securities itself. It is clear that he may not.

The doctrine of in pari delicto is a well-established principle of New York law based on the notion that “one wrongdoer may not recover against another.” Id. at 63 (citing Kirschner v. KPMG LLP, 15 N.Y.3d 446, 912 N.Y.S.2d 508, 938 N.E.2d 941, 950 (2010)). In the bankruptcy context, “[t]he debtor’s misconduct is imputed to the trustee because, innocent as he may be, he acts as the debtor’s representative,” id. at 63, and therefore the doctrine of in pari delicto “bars the Trustee (who stands in Madoffs shoes) from asserting claims directly-against the Defendants on behalf of the estate for wrongdoing in which Madoff (to say the least) participated,” id. at 58 (emphasis in original). See also Shearson Lehman [315]*315Hutton, Inc. v. Wagoner, 944 F.2d 114, 120 (2d Cir.1991) (“[A] claim against a third party for defrauding a corporation with the cooperation of management accrues to creditors, not to the guilty corporation.”). To the extent that the Trustee has asserted in this proceeding various policy reasons why in pari delicto should not apply on the facts of this case, those arguments were rejected by the Second Circuit, and thus they are rejected here as well. See JPMorgan II, 721 F.3d at 64-65.

Without the authority to bring claims on behalf of Madoff Securities itself, the Trustee also argues that he is entitled to bring claims on behalf of Madoff Securities’ customers. However, the “the implied prohibition in Article III against third-party standing applies to actions brought by bankruptcy trustees.” Id. at 67; see also id. (citing Caplin v. Marine Midland Grace Trust Co. of N.Y., 406 U.S. 416, 92 S.Ct. 1678, 32 L.Ed.2d 195 (1972) for the proposition that “federal bankruptcy law does not empower a trustee to collect money owed to creditors”). Seeking to escape Caplin’s prohibition against bankruptcy trustees asserting claims of the debtor’s creditors, the Trustee argues that SIPA, rather than the Bankruptcy Code, provides for such standing. In doing so, the Trustee relies on three theories of standing: bailment, subrogation, and assignment.

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Securities Investor Protection Corp. v. Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, 987 F. Supp. 2d 311, 2013 WL 6301415 (S.D.N.Y. 2013).

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