On any measure but profitablity, it has been another miserable year for Wall Street, concluding with Mark Madoff, son of the fraudster, killing himself in New York two years after his father’s arrest.
The suicide came as Irving Picard, the trustee for the liquidation of his father’s investment firm, was spraying the last of 60 lawsuits at big banks, hedge funds and others, seeking $40bn in compensation and damages for their roles in the affair. In among them, he has accused members of the family, including Mark, of being “completely derelict” in not identifying the fraud.
Mark Madoff’s wife Stephanie changed her name and that of their children to Morgan earlier this year to escape the opprobrium the Madoff name now carries. Mr Picard is trying to associate it with as many institutions as he can, including big banks such as HSBC, JPMorgan Chase and UBS, each of which played a supporting role.