Citi Field, where the Mets can now play free of the Madoff shadow. (Photo: AP)
More On Legal & Compliance
from The Advisor's Professional Library- Updating Form ADV and Form U4 When it comes to disclosure on Form ADV, RIAs should assume information would be material to investors. When in doubt, RIAs should disclose information rather than arguing later with securities regulators that it was not material.
- Trading Practices and Errors When SEC-registered investment advisors conduct annual audits of firm policies and procedures, they should pay close attention to trading practices. Though usually not required to, state-registered advisors should look at their trading practices and revise policies that do not fully protect clients.
The controversy over the Mets owners’ involvement with the con man Bernie Madoff came to a swift and sudden end on Monday as a settlement was reached just before trial.
The owners, Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz, agreed to pay $162 million to the Madoff trustee Irving Picard, according to a story from MLB.com posted on the Mets’ website.
According to the story, Wilpon and Katz will not pay anything for three years.
Jury selection was scheduled to begin Monday for a trial that was to determine whether Wilpon and Katz could prove they were not "willfully blind" to Madoff's scheme, for which Madoff is serving a 150-year sentence at a North Carolina federal prison.
Judge Jed Rakoff ruled earlier this month that Wilpon and Katz would have to forfeit as much as $83 million in allegedly ill-gotten gains and go to trial over another $303 million.
The $162 million settlement figure is a total figure that includes the $83 million. Moreover, the Mets owners can recover that money through their own claims, totaling $178 million, against the Madoff estate.
"In a sense, we're now partners," David J. Sheehan, a lawyer for Picard, told The Associated Press outside the courthouse.
Picard had said that the Mets owners knew, or should have known, that Madoff's investment scheme was a fraud.
"Now I guess I can smile. ... Maybe I can take a day off," Wilpon said, according to the AP. "I am very, very pleased for ourselves and our families. This was really a team effort."
Rakoff said Picard had reviewed the evidence and would no longer pursue a claim of "willful blindness" against the defendants.
