Marathon Madoff Ponzi case settled before opening in High Court Disgraced former financier died on Wednesday
about 4 hours ago
A marathon case due to open in the High Court this week concerning the Ponzi scheme run by Bernie Madoff settled on Wednesday shortly after Madoff died in prison.
The 82-year-old former Wall Street investor who defrauded thousands of investors out of billions had been in the 12th year of his 150-year prison term for the Ponzi fraud.
A British Virgin Islands (BVI) registered investment fund, Defender Ltd had sued HSBC Continental Europe (formerly HSBC France) of Grand Canal Square, Dublin, in the High Court.
In April 1996 - the late Garrett Cooney having temporarily succumbed to a bout of laryngitis - it fell to Donal O Donnell, a recently appointed 38-year-old senior counsel, to open the appeal of Senator Des Hanafin against the High Court s refusal to invalidate the wafer-thin passage of the October 1995 divorce referendum.
Had Shane Ross sat at the back of the Supreme Court chamber during that appeal, he could not have failed to have been struck by the conspicuous brilliance of O Donnell s advocacy, a staging post on a journey that was to mark him out as the great appellate and constitutional lawyer of his generation.