Each business day HedgeCo.Net keeps you informed with the top hedge fund industry news, opinion and insight from around the globe. From the latest hedge fund launches, to the impact of regulation, competition, and investor activism - we track the topics and people that make a difference to you.
Caribbean Net News – The trustee liquidating Bernard Madoff’s business told a judge that two Cayman Islands and Bermuda hedge-fund firms accused of profiting from the fraud are ignoring his lawsuits seeking a total of $230.7 million in damages.
Trustee Irving Picard on Wednesday asked the US Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan to file default notices against the Cayman Islands-based Primeo Fund and Bermuda-based Alpha Prime Fund Ltd., court papers show. Two offshore firms sued earlier for a total of $1.2 billion also have ignored Picard’s lawsuits.
Bloomberg – A Biovail Corp. lawsuit against SAC Capital Management LLC was thrown out by a New Jersey judge for failing to state a claim.
Biovail accused hedge funds including SAC and Sigma Capital Management of conspiring in a short-selling scheme to drive down the drugmaker’s share price. The Mississauga, Ontario-based company also claimed Gradient Analytics Inc. helped the hedge funds by writing false reports about Biovail.
“Biovail fails to elicit any specific damages, and instead relies upon a general diminution theory,” New Jersey Superior Court Judge Donald Goldman wrote in a 51-page ruling released today. “Biovail’s claims must be dismissed.”
HeraldTribune.com – An attorney representing newsletter writer Don Rowe, who strongly recommended Arthur G. Nadel’s hedge funds to some investors, is seeking to have a civil fraud suit against his client dismissed.
In an Aug. 3 filing in circuit court in Sarasota County, Tampa attorney Edward O. Savitz claims that Rowe was not the ultimate cause of the investors’ losses: He did not sell or offer any securities and some of the plaintiff’s claims are barred because too much time has passed.
Sarasota attorney Drew Clayton is representing 11 investors in Nadel’s failed hedge funds and seeking damages of $5.4 million. All his clients were subscribers to one of the publications Rowe published from Sarasota: ”Wall Street Digest” or ”Carnegie Asset Management Inc. Reports.”
Boston Globe – The trustee liquidating Bernard Madoff’s defunct money-management firm sued three Fairfield Greenwich Group hedge funds, seeking the return of $3.54 billion withdrawn before Madoff’s massive fraud unraveled.
The trustee, Irving Picard, filed the so-called clawback lawsuit yesterday in federal court in Manhattan, seeking damages that would be used to repay victims of a $65 billion Ponzi scheme at Madoff’s New York-based money-management firm.
Starting in 1995, the Fairfield funds invested about $4.5 billion with Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, or BLMIS, through 242 wire transfers, Picard said in the complaint. The funds are Fairfield Sentry Ltd., Greenwich Sentry LP, and Greenwich Sentry Partners LP.
Montgomery Advertiser – State officials are seeking $36.2 million in damages from OppenheimerFunds Inc., which managed a fund responsible for steep losses in the Oregon College Savings Plan.
Officials said in a statement Monday that risky, "hedge-fund like" investments cost the Oppenheimer Core Bond Fund 36 percent of its value last year — and 10 percent more so far this year.Meanwhile, comparable funds in a benchmark index posted a gain of about 5 percent for 2008, they said.
New York Times Blogs – Officials in Oregon are seeking $36.2 million in damages from OppenheimerFunds, which managed an account responsible for steep losses in the state’s college savings plan.
Officials said in a statement on Monday that risky “hedge-fund like” investments cost the Oppenheimer Core Bond Fund 36 percent of its value last year and 10 percent more so far this year.
Comparable funds in a benchmark index posted a gain of about 5 percent for 2008, they said.
