Madoff Liquidator Says $2.6 Billion Will Pay Victims of Fraud

Bloomberg reports:

The agency liquidating Bernard Madoff’s brokerage says the $2.6 billion it has on hand is enough to satisfy all legitimate claims by victims of the money manager’s $65 billion Ponzi scheme.

The Securities Investor Protection Corp. is using a formula that investors may challenge in court. The agency has the money in an industry-financed fund and from recovered assets to reimburse Madoff’s 5,000 customers to the maximum allowed by its charter, Stephen Harbeck, SIPC president, said in an interview.

The SIPC has $1.6 billion in a fund designed to reimburse customers as much as $500,000 on lost investments, plus $1 billion recovered by brokerage trustee Irving Picard from Madoff firm bank accounts and desk drawers, Harbeck said.