Dealing a major blow to the trustee’s efforts to recover fraudulent transfers on behalf of the bankruptcy estate of the company run by Bernard Madoff, Judge Jed S. Rakoff of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York held in SIPC v. Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC1 that the Bankruptcy Code cannot be used to recover fraudulent transfers of funds that occur entirely outside the United States.
In a decision released on June 25, 2014, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that ASARCO LLC could not maintain CERCLA cost recovery actions against the trustees of residuary trusts created by the will of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. ASARCO, as part of its emergence from Chapter 11 bankruptcy, paid the US, the State of Washington, and the Port of Everett, Washington $50.2 million to settle pending CERCLA claims at two Superfund sites in Washington State.