On Friday, March 10, 2023, Silicon Valley Bank (“SVB”) became the largest U.S. lender since the Great Financial Crisis to enter into receivership with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. SVB was a major provider of depository services and liquidity to various investment funds, managers and their related entities through subscription

SEC Division of Enforcement Director Gurbir Grewal and several high-ranking officials from the U.S. Attorney’s Offices for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York and the FBI spoke on November 29, 2022 at a conference sponsored by Sandpiper Partners LLC concerning hot topics in SEC and DOJ enforcement.  The panelists all made clear that the views they expressed were their own, but those views are worth hearing.

With several billions of dollars ultimately at stake, the Second Circuit has affirmed that Section 546(e) of the Bankruptcy Code, a safe-harbor protecting certain securities-related payments from bankruptcy “claw backs,” barred Irving Picard, Trustee of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, LLC (“BLMIS”), from asserting all but a limited category of avoidance and recovery claims. In re Bernard L. Madoff Inv. Sec. LLC, No. 12-2557 (L) (2d Cir. Dec. 8, 2014). The affected claims are premised on transfers made by BLMIS more than two years prior to the commencement of its liquidation proceeding, and allegedly preferential transfers made within 90 days of the commencement of the liquidation proceeding. Unless overturned by an en banc panel or the United States Supreme Court, the Second Circuit’s ruling will result in the dismissal of such claims in hundreds of the adversary proceedings commenced by the BLMIS Trustee.