Banco Santander agrees to the conditions to avoid legal brawl

It was declared that Banco Santander, a Spanish bank that was one of the institutions that lost the greatest amount of money due to the Bernard Madoff swindle, has agreed to take conditions with the aim of avoiding a legal brawl.

In line with the US bankruptcy law, the bank has to pay $235 million to resolve potential legal claims over withdrawals a subsidiary made from its investments with Madoff in the 90 days before the fraud collapsed. In exchange, the trustee has to recognize that Santander's hedge fund subsidiary, Optimal investment Services, lost in the scam a lot more than it withdrew, which will allow Optimal to recover a large share of money available for Madoff's victims. It should be noted that the two funds managed by the Geneva-based firm suffered a net loss of $1.55 billion. 

The settlement still needs to be approved by a U.S. court.

Madoff has pleaded guilty to stealing billions of dollars from some investors to pay fraudulent profits to others. Irving Picard was appointed as a trustee by the courts to recover the amount left from the victims' assets and return as much money as possible to its rightful owners.

Optimal will be required to return only 85 percent of the money withdrawn during the specified period.