More details about Santander settlement here: Spanish bank settles dispute with Madoff trustee - AP, May 27, 2009
The settlement, announced Tuesday, calls for Banco Santander to pay $235 million to resolve potential legal claims over withdrawals a subsidiary made from its investments with Madoff in the 90 days before the fraud collapsed. In exchange, the trustee has agreed to recognize that Santander's hedge fund subsidiary, Optimal Investment Services, lost far more in the scam than it withdrew. Two funds managed by the Geneva-based firm had a net loss of $1.55 billion. Official recognition of that loss will allow Optimal to eventually recover a large share of whatever money is available for Madoff's victims. Counting the millions that Santander has now agreed to contribute, that pool of reimbursement assets is now worth about $1.2 billion. The settlement, which still needs to be approved by a U.S. court, represents the latest step Santander has taken to resolve its entanglements in the case. About 93% of the bank's clients have already signed on to a separate settlement in which the bank agreed to refund all of their lost principal. A Spanish bank that was among the biggest losers in the Bernard Madoff swindle has cut a deal to avoid a legal brawl with the trustee trying to unwind the massive Ponzi scheme.
$1.2B is a total pool recovered to date by trustee Picard.
You'll have fun with this one, from Madoff Scam Ensnares Credit Suisse - FR, NYP, December 30, 2008. LONDON — As investors around the world size up losses on Bernard Madoff’s alleged Ponzi scheme, one purveyor of investment services to the world’s wealthy — Swiss private bank Union Bancaire Privée — is scrambling to explain its ties to the New York financier. Half of UBP’s 22 funds of funds, which channeled clients’ money into other hedge funds, put at least some of that money into Madoff-related investment vehicles, including one run by J. Ezra Merkin, chairman of car-loan company GMAC LLC, according to a recent letter from the bank to investors. UBP Scrambles Over Madoff Ties
"I urge all parties, whether they’re custodian banks, whether they are liquidators of relevant funds, whether they are investors, to accept an international settlement," Frieden said at a conference dinner in Luxembourg yesterday. ... London or Paris may become the hub for the resolution of dozens of lawsuits related to banks’ and investment funds’ exposure to Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, Luxembourg’s Treasury and Budget Minister Luc Frieden said.