Fairfield Greenwich Group, the hedge fund that steered $7 billion to Bernard Madoff, faces new claims of fraud by investors who previously alleged negligence against co-founders Walter Noel, Jeffrey Tucker and Andres Piedrahita.
The class-action suit, first filed in January in Manhattan federal court, was amended April 24 to include claims that the three co-founders and the firm acted so recklessly in placing client money with Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC that their actions constituted fraud. The amended complaint relies on documents filed by Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin, who filed an administrative complaint against Fairfield Greenwich and its Sentry Funds April 1, and other investigation by the plaintiffs.
The investors’ complaint, which seeks damages for their losses, claims that Fairfield Greenwich and its executives had no basis to tell investors that their historical profits were real, that Madoff’s “split-strike conversion strategy” was legitimate, or that the firm conducted adequate due diligence.