Madoff Client Lists and Holdings Create New Trade Secrets Battle Between Banks and Madoff Trustee Irving Picard

Bloomberg is reporting that a new spat is generating over Madoff Trustee Irving Picard's proposal to a federal judge that would permit the Trustee to disclose and share a large amount of information the banks consider trade secret protected. Apparently the Trustee and the banks have executed confidentiality agreements that prohibit the Trustee from using information shared with his office in certain ways - and the banks now claim that he wants the Court to modify those agreements over the objections of the banks.

The banks said the trustee has no right to “abrogate” a yearlong agreement to protect trade secrets by revising his rules for handling confidential information. If Picard has his way, the bank’s anti-money-laundering policies, risk-assessment methods and internal reviews might be shared with every major financial institution in New York and thousands of other parties, JP Morgan argued.

Citigroup called Picard’s proposal “fatally flawed.” Thousands of pages of documents it delivered to Picard since receiving his July 2009 subpoena might be passed around, including pages identifying “potential and actual transactions” contemplated by Citigroup, the New York-based bank said in a court filing. The documents were delivered under a confidentiality agreement with Picard that he is seeking to undo, it said.

We'll keep an eye on this one for you.