A prior post on this blog described some of the global choice of law issues arising from the Madoff fiasco. One set of issues will revolve around which nation’s law should be applied to decide claims regarding whether investment advisers had a duty to investigate Madoff’s operations, and how much investigation is required.
The facts and claims continue to expand, and choice of law will become ever more complex, subject of course to choice of law clauses and whether they can or will be enforced. Thus, even as Mr. Madoff was pleading guilty this week, the WSJ was running articles this week describing ongoing investigations into money transfers between various Madoff entities in London and New York. Meanwhile, more claims have been filed with cross-border parties. For example. a Lawcom article describes a suit filed in the State of Washington, and goes on to say:
“[The plaintiff] Dennis, an American living in Switzerland, alleges that FutureSelect invested his money with the Rye Fund, part of a group of hedge funds owned by Rye, New York-based Tremont Group Holdings Inc., and that the Rye Fund in turn place the money with Madoff. The derivative lawsuit was filed on behalf of Dennis by Steve Berman, an attorney with the law firm Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro in Seattle.”