TORONTO - The court-appointed trustee unravelling Bernard Madoff's massive fraud believes the scam artist may have some assets in Canada and wants to hire a Montreal law firm to help find them.
Irving Picard has asked the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, which is overseeing the process, to allow him to hire Kugler Kandestin as a special counsel.
"The trustee seeks to retain Kugler as special counsel because of its knowledge and expertise in the laws of Canada," lawyers for Picard wrote in a court filing Monday.
"The services of Kugler are necessary and essential to enable the trust to execute faithfully his duties herein."
A hearing is scheduled for Jan. 20 to approve the request.
What the Canadian assets may be and how much they may be worth was not included in the court filing.
After Madoff's arrest late year, Picard was appointed to try to recover any remaining business assets and divvy up those proceeds -- along with Securities Investors Protection Corporation funds -- to victims. SIPC, created by Congress to protect investors when a brokerage firm fails, can provide up to $500,000 for each customer.
An auction of in November of Madoff's yacht "Bull", two smaller boats and a Mercedes-Benz convertible raised more than $1 million combined.
The auction followed a sale of Madoff personal property in New York that also raised more than $1 million. Two or three additional auctions are planned, and Madoff's homes in Manhattan and Palm Beach remain for sale.
A report by Picard has said the search "has unearthed a labyrinth of interrelated international funds, institutions and entities of almost unparalleled complexity and breadth."
The report said the trustee has located assets and businesses "of interest" in 11 places: Britain, Ireland, France, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Spain, Gibraltar, Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, the Bahamas.
More than 15,400 claims against Madoff were filed by a July 2 deadline.
Madoff was sentenced last year to 150 years in prison for orchestrating an epic Ponzi scheme that wiped out life savings and entire charities.
Thousands of investors with Madoff's once-respected advisory firm believed their securities accounts were worth tens of billions of dollars.
But investigators say the totals on the clients' monthly account statements were fiction.
