Bernie Madoff’s Irish Connections

The Phoenix Magazine–The Liquidator of a Bernie Madoff feeder fund company is still pursuing Bank of Ireland Nominees and Irish Life International (ILI) for monies he claims were unduly paid out to these entities from Madoff’s ponzi scheme. Now and Irish-registered company called Monte Paschi Ireland Ltd. (MPI), which is based in Dublin’s IFSC, is also being pursued by the liquidator, Kenneth Krys, in a related case.

Krys is the liquidator of a British Virgin Island company called Fairfield Sentry Ltd. which was the largest of Madoff’s so-called ‘feeder funds’. Krys is attempting to claw back monies paid out to over 300 financial institutions in proceedings in a New York court. In the Bank of Ireland case, the liquidator is seeking the return of $3m while he has also just filed and action for $265,000 against ILI, which was sold to a Swedish company in 2011 and was formerly owned by Irish Life and Permanent.

MPI was incorporated in 1998 as the Irish operation of the third largest Italian bank, Banca Monte del Paschi di Siena. According to a note in the most recent accounts for MPI – signed off at the end of March 2011 – MPI redeemed shares for the amount of €6.79m in July 2007, having invested €6m in 2005 in a Madoff feeder fund called Fairfield Sigma Ltd, a related company to Fairfield Sentry.

The accounts for MPI stated: “The liquidators of Sigma and Sentry have instigated legal actions to recover monies paid out to numerous investors in both Sigma and Sentry who exited these funds prior to the collapse and exposure of Madoff”. MPI claims that the action taken against it by Krys is “unfounded” and the company “will continue to rigorously defend itself in this matter”. Following legal advice, however, it has set aside €850,000 for the case, which is the profit from the Sigma redemption plus interest.

There are two Irish nominee directors on the MPI board. One of them is Dublin lawyer Andrew Bates, the head of financial services at the law firm Dillon Eustace, where he is also a partner. (Dillon Eustace acts as the company’s solicitors.) The other Irish nominee director is listed as Sinead Keaveney who joined the board earlier this year and gives a Ballsbridge, D4 address with company records.