By Kevin McCoy, From USA TODAY

Two Cayman Island financial funds that invested heavily with Ponzi scheme architect Bernard Madoff’s business have agreed to a nearly $497 million settlement with the court trustee seeking the disgraced financier’s assets on behalf of victimized customers.

The tentative deal with Herald Fund SPC and Primeo Fund will add the money to a fund used to repay burned Madoff investors, raising the total recovered so far to roughly $10.3 billion, trustee Irving Picard announced Monday.

The agreement, which requires U.S. Bankruptcy Court approval, “avoids the cost and delay of what could otherwise have been lengthy and contentious litigation,” said Geoffrey North of BakerHostetler LLP, Picard’s court-appointed counsel.

Madoff’s investment advisory business collapsed in December 2008, disrupting or dashing the financial plans of thousands of ordinary investors, celebrities, charities, financial funds and others who’d entrusted their money to the former Nasdaq chairman. Many said they were lulled by the eerily positive stock investment gains his company reported for decades.

Madoff customers lost an estimated $20 billion of their principal investments all told, according to Picard’s team.

Unable to meet a wave of investor withdrawals amid the national financial crisis, Madoff told his two sons the business was a scam in which he used some customers’ funds to pay others. They notified authorities, setting in motion an investigation that led to Madoff’s 2009 guilty plea without standing trial.

He’s now serving a 150-year federal prison term. Five former employees convicted on charges they aided and profited from the scam are scheduled to be sentenced in December.

The Primeo fund, both an account holder and an indirect investor with Madoff, withdrew approximately $15.4 million during the two years before the business collapsed, according to a court petition filed by Picard. The Herald fund withdrew nearly $568 million in principal from Madoff’s business during the six years before the implosion, the filing shows.

Picard filed a 2010 amended complaint seeking to recover the transfers and disallow the Herald fund’s customer claim against Madoff’s business.

The proposed settlement terms allow the Herald fund to pursue a customer claim totaling more than $1.6 billion.

The funds, which are financially intertwined and in Cayman Islands liquidation proceedings, initially opposed Picard’s recovery efforts. But negotiations produced a settlement that will allow the Herald fund to pursue its claim of more than $1.6 billion as a former Madoff customer.

As part of the deal, the funds will pay $496.8 million to Picard for the benefit of the customer property fund, settling the legal battle.

IMAGE: File photo shows Bernard Madoff arriving for a Manhattan Federal court hearing in New York City in March 2009.

(Photo: Stephen Chernin, Getty Images)

For more on this story go to: http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/11/17/madoff-feeder-fund-settlements/19181137/

Related story:

Herald Fund SPC (In Official Liquidation) announces global settlement with Madoff Trustee

GEORGE TOWN, Cayman Islands, Nov. 17, 2014 /PRNewswire/ — Russell Smith and Niall Goodsir-Cullen of BDO CRI (Cayman) Ltd., the Principal Liquidators of Herald Fund SPC (In Official Liquidation) (“Herald”), are delighted to announce the achievement of a global settlement agreement with Irving H. Picard, Trustee for the Estate of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC (“Trustee”) which is considered to be very beneficial to Herald’s stakeholders. The Principal Liquidators were assisted by their US and Cayman Islands legal counsel (respectively, Kirkland & Ellis LLP: led by partners Joseph Serino and David Flugman; and Walkers: led by partner Matthew Goucke).

The settlement agreement, which was made public today in New York through a filing with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, achieves an allowed customer claim for Herald in the BLMIS estate in the amount of approximately $1.64 billion free of any subordination or holdback and a full resolution of the Trustee’s clawback claims against Herald, originally asserted in the amount of $578 million. Herald’s shareholders will not be required to enter into any due diligence procedures with the Trustee in order to be eligible for distributions in Herald’s liquidation.

Under the terms of the settlement, Herald will receive a credit of $100 million against its clawback liability in connection with a payment made earlier this year by JPMorgan, part of which was in satisfaction of clawback claims asserted against JPMorgan in its capacity as a Herald shareholder. Applying this credit, and other credits of $10 million, to the amount of the withdrawals made by Herald through its Luxembourg-based custodian, HSBC Securities Services (Luxembourg) S.A. (“HSSL”), Herald has agreed to pay the Trustee $467,701,943 in full satisfaction of the Trustee’s claims against Herald.

Herald’s customer claim will be allowed in the amount of $1,639,896,943, calculated by adding 100% of the agreed clawback liability onto the $1,172,195,000 net loss of invested principal suffered by Herald’s investors in the Madoff fraud. This marks the first time in several years that the Trustee has agreed to a full 100% springing claim in a settlement.

Herald will be entitled to a catch-up distribution on its allowed customer claim of $755 million and the parties have agreed to deduct the full amount of Herald’s clawback liability from this catch-up distribution. After subtracting $29 million which Herald is temporarily advancing on behalf of its largest investor, Primeo Fund (In Official Liquidation) (“Primeo”), to satisfy Primeo’s own clawback liability, the Principal Liquidators expect to receive approximately $260 million in cash in early January 2015.

Assuming a 75% total recovery on Madoff customer claims, Herald expects to receive approximately $500 million in addition to the money it will receive in catch-up distributions, bringing its ultimate total recovery under this settlement to $760 million in unencumbered cash available to distribute to its investors. This amount does not include the $13-$15 million that Herald expects to receive from the JPMorgan class action settlement, nor does it include the value of Herald’s ongoing claim against HSSL in the Luxembourg Courts as well as other potential claims.

Herald will receive a full release from the Trustee and Herald’s shareholders will receive a release from any claim that the Trustee may have in connection with those shareholders investments in, or withdrawals from, Herald.

The settlement remains subject to approval by the Grand Court of the Cayman Islands and by the Bankruptcy Court in New York, which hearings have been scheduled to take place before the end of 2014.

The Principal Liquidators consider this to be an excellent result for the Herald’s stakeholders and one which has been achieved expeditiously given that Herald’s liquidation commenced in July 2013.