Some investors defrauded by epic swindler Bernard Madoff on Tuesday added accounting firm KPMG, JPMorgan Chase (JPM) and Bank of New York Mellon (BK) to a civil lawsuit in a New York court, lawyer Joseph Cotchett said.
The lawyer, who also named Oppenheimer Acquisition Corp, Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance (MMLIC.UL), Tremont funds founder Sandra Manzke and former Tremont Chief Executive Robert Schulman in the amended lawsuit, said the complaint was based on his law firm's prison interview with Madoff in July and an investigation.
Cotchett said in a statement that "KPMG never blew the whistle on fraudulent conduct" at Madoff's British firm, Madoff Securities International Ltd, which the accounting firm audited.
He said the complaint was filed in New York State Supreme Court as an amendment to an earlier lawsuit.
"JPMorgan Chase, the complaint alleges, helped Madoff launder money between the United States and London -- almost $6 billion of investors' money," the Burlingame, California-based Cotchett of law firm Cotchett, Pitre and McCarthy said.
Madoff, arrested last December for orchestrating the biggest investment fraud in Wall Street history of up to $65 billion, is serving a life sentence in prison after pleading guilty to the decades-long fraud.
"The complaint alleges Bernard Madoff's fraud was not accomplished in isolation," the law firm's statement said. "The sheer size and scope of the fraud make it impossible for Madoff to have acted alone. The complaint alleges JP Morgan and the Bank of New York as well as powerhouse accounting firm KPMG LLP and their international counterparts, KPMG UK and KPMG International were primary players necessary to accomplish the fraud."
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