Companies accused of aiding Bernard Madoff's vast pyramid scheme have agreed to pay more than $1 billion to settle a fraud lawsuit, the trustee charged with recovering Madoff's funds said Thursday. More than a dozen investment funds and a former chief executive of Tremont Group - accused of running the second-largest Madoff "feeder fund" - signed on to the settlement, the trustee, Irving Picard, said in a statement.
Tremont, a multibillion-dollar money management firm based in New York, funnelled investors' cash to Madoff investment business while ignoring warning signs that he was running a giant fraud, according to Picard. Also included in the settlement were Tremont's parent companies, Oppenheimer Acquisition Corp, which runs the Oppenheimer family of mutual funds, and the Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company.