(Reuters) - Former customers of Bernard Madoff's massive Ponzi scheme filed a class action lawsuit on Monday seeking to recover $19 billion from JPMorgan Chase & Co, claiming the bank willfully ignored signs of fraud.
JPMorgan was Madoff's bank for two decades. The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Manhattan, claims the bank was "thoroughly complicit" in concealing Madoff's fraud.
The lawsuit comes less than a week after a federal judge threw out a similar suit from Irving Picard, the trustee seeking money for Madoff's victims, ruling that he did not have standing to seek money from the bank. Instead, U.S. District Court Judge Colleen McMahon ruled, only victims of the scheme can pursue such claims, leading to Monday's lawsuit.
The class action lawsuit asserts that even a cursory examination of the finances of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC would have revealed that the money was not used to follow an investment strategy but simply flowed between Madoff and his customers.
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