Non-Madoff Defendants

On occasion, an individual creditor acting on its own behalf will file competing claims against such non-debtors. It is not surprising that such competing claims arise frequently in bankruptcy cases involving Ponzi schemes. In those cases, a creditor may have been harmed, not only by the debtor, but by non-debtor parties through whom the creditor invested in the debtor's Ponzi scheme. These independent claims, however, have the potential to interfere with the trustee's recovery efforts. To avoid undue interference and to prevent the lone creditor from recovering for itself assets that should be available to estate creditors as a whole, the trustee frequently must seek injunctive relief to stop the competing creditor actions.