March 14, 2012
Publication: Law360
Kobre & Kim represents MAXAM Capital, a fund-of-fund investment manager, as well as other MAXAM-affiliated individuals and entities, in litigation brought by the court-appointed trustee for the liquidation of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC. We recently secured a significant tactical victory for MAXAM when Judge Jed S. Rakoff of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, granted our motion to withdraw the case from the U.S. Bankruptcy Court to the District Court in order to address issues striking at the heart of the trustee’s case against MAXAM. Those issues present substantial questions of nonfederal bankruptcy law, and, as a result of this victory, will now be heard — and adjudicated — by a federal district court. This is MAXAM’s second successful motion to withdraw. Last summer, Judge Rakoff withdrew the reference from bankruptcy court to determine whether the trustee’s common law claims against MAXAM were legally viable. The trustee agreed to dismiss those claims shortly after the reference was withdrawn.