According to its figures some investors 720

The compensation of victims of Bernard Madoff has not finished to deliver all its surprises. In a press conference held yesterday in New York, the Spanish legal firm Cremades & Calvo - Sotelo, responsible for the coordination of 60 offices of lawyer representing victims of the "Madoff scandal" outside the US, threw a keypad in the mare by presenting the first balance sheet "informal" of recovery in Europe. According to its figures, some investors 720.000 (on an estimated 3 million victims) have already received 15.5 billion of dollars in transactions with their banks.

Swiss banks step

This amount is very much higher than the $ 1.5 billion collected so far by American liquidator Irving Picard, a total of estimated losses of $ 21.2 billion at the end of December 2009. Interviewed yesterday evening, French lawyers were however perplexed on the amount advanced, not having not themselves contacted by the Spanish cabinet.

While Member of the alliance of the offices of lawyer, Gide Loyrette Nouel French indicates no have been contacted or consulted on these figures.

"I thought that we would have reached a friendly settlement in only 30 of cases, but the banks wanted to avoid to destroy their reputation in a period where the confidence of the customers is a very sought-after assets." "This settlement will allow them to avoid years of legal proceedings," explained the founder Chairman of Cremades & Calvo - Sotelo, Javier Cremades yesterday. Without wanting to reveal the name of the 20 European banks concerned - except the Spanish group Santander, who made public his agreement-, he indicated that they were located in Spain, France, the United Kingdom, Germany and the Portugal. On the other hand, the Swiss banks (Credit Switzerland, Julius Baer, BBVA Switzerland...), and Banco Espirito Santo to the Portugal, ABN AMRO and the Spanish subsidiary of Barclays still refused any global transaction so far. "Swiss banks feel very protected, but the threat of criminal actions could soon make them change their minds," said Javier Cremades.

According to data collected by the President of the international alliance of law firm counsel to its clients, $ 15.5 billion cover 80 of the clients represented by the alliance and are, in theory, 100 of the amount initially invested by clients compensation, excluding the fictional gains "invented" by the firm of Bernard Madoff. The concerned banks include HSBC or Santander. The Spanish bank, which has lost 3.2 billion in the Madoff case, suggested that its customers, as of 2009, a compensation plan in the form of preferential shares repayable over 10 years. In his case, the amount of the transaction would represent 1 billion euros approximately.

In a sense, the initiative of Cremades & Calvo - Sotelo tends to show that Santander is not the only European Bank to be dealt. It also aims to put some pressure on the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) and American regulators, which are the subject of several complaints to the United States. "It's a signal encouraging for us, because there was a reluctance of investors to turn against the banks in the United States," says Gaytri Kachroo, Vice President of the Global Alliance of Law Firms in the Madoff case. It estimated that these European transactions will also put some pressure on the judicial liquidator, banks seeking to recover a portion of the amounts involved.

Paradoxically, the treatment of the European "victims" of Bernard Madoff could be significantly more favourable than that of us investors. Whatever the efforts of the liquidator, the level of compensation of the latter will never at the same height, either because they had invested directly from the company of the rogue broker, or because they are passed by funds of funds, the financial surface is in no way comparable to that of banks.