A judge ruled that a trustee may try to claw back fictitious profits only from the last two years before the epic Madoff fraud was disclosed in December 2008, a ruling likely to affect claims against hundreds of former customers of Bernard Madoff….
In his latest opinion dated April 30, the judge threw out claims by Picard seeking to claw back six years or more of profits, as he did in the case of Wilpon and Katz, whose potential liability was reduced to $386 million from $1 billion. The opinion applies to “innocent investors” who were not accused by the trustee of knowing about the fraud, as he has with a number of sophisticated investors such as banks and funds.
via Judge trims Madoff trustee’s profit clawback suits — Reuters
Why two years? Surely this was not an arbitrary timeframe.