BVI Court approves landmark settlement with Madoff Trustee on behalf of liquidators

The BVI Court has approved a settlement between Kingate Global Fund, Ltd. and Kingate Euro Fund, Ltd. (both in liquidation) and Irving H. Picard, as trustee for the liquidation of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities. Eleanor Morgan, of leading global offshore law firm, Mourant, appeared on behalf of Paul Pretlove, Tammy Fu (both of Kalo) and John C. McKenna (of Finance & Risk Services), the joint liquidators of the Kingate Funds.

By the settlement agreement, which has now been approved by the Courts in New York and the British Virgin Islands, and remains subject to the approval of the Courts of Bermuda, the parties have agreed to a mutual release of all claims.

Mourant Partner, Nicholas Fox, advised on the settlement and said: "We're extremely pleased to have worked with our clients and New York, Bermuda and London counsel to reach a positive conclusion to this litigation, which makes hundreds of millions of dollars available to directly compensate investors in the Kingate Funds for their losses and avoids the litigation costs which would have been incurred if this case had proceeded to trial. This settlement should assist the liquidators and their advisors with focusing their efforts on returning money to investors. It's a monumental development in the Madoff recovery efforts."

The Kingate Funds were two of the largest investors in the Madoff Ponzi scheme, investing approximately $1.7 billion over 14 years. Following the arrest of Mr. Madoff and the collapse of his Ponzi scheme, the Kingate Funds went into liquidation – two of the largest ever undertaken in the British Virgin Islands.

The Mourant team act as BVI counsel for the Liquidators, led by Partners Nicholas Fox and Eleanor Morgan with Counsel Catriona Hunter, Senior Associate Shane Donovan and Associate Greg O'Keefe-Davis. In addition to the liquidators, the Mourant team worked closely with Anna Silver and Iain Gow of Kalo, Gary S. Lee, John A. Pintarelli and Erica J. Richards of Morrison & Foerster LLP, Robert S. Loigman, Rex Lee and Lindsay Weber of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP, Jeremy Scott of Lipman Karas and Allan Dunkle of Finance & Risk Services.