With just six business days left to do his Xmas shopping file suit, yet, armed with a list of deep-pocketed individuals and entities who associated with Bernie Madoff, Madoff trustee Irving Picard targeted his latest lawsuit at HSBC and related investors.  In this suit, Mr. Picard is seeking $9 billion from HSBC and related investors on the contention that the Madoff fraud “could not have been accomplished or perpetuated unless the HSBC defendants agreed to look the other way and to pretend that they were ensuring the existence of assets and trades when, in fact, they did no such thing.”

The lawsuit against HSBC is the 3rd multibillion-dollar complaint the trustee has brought against a major financial company.  Last week, Mr. Picard sued Madoff primary banker JPMorgan Chase for $6.4 billion;  in late November, he sued UBS for $2 billion, alleging that the Swiss bank and some affiliates “chose to enable Madoff’s fraud for their own gain.”  JPMorgan, UBS and HSBC all deny the claims.

    Who's Next.   Perhaps the Wilpon family, owners of the New York Mets baseball team.  That guess was proferred by NYT DealBook’s Peter Lattman and Michael Schmidt, who wrote:

Although there had been widespread speculation that the Wilpons lost money in the Ponzi scheme, an account called "Mets Limited Partnership" put a total of $522.7 million into Madoff accounts and withdrew $570.5, a profit of $47.8 million, according to a 2009 bankruptcy court filing made by Mr. Picard in New York that detailed the “net winners."  And so, they remain a target for Mr. Picard.

Another 19 lawsuits were previously filed, targeting Madoff family members, wealthy individuals like Jeffry Picower, and major feeder funds, including those run by the Fairfield Greenwich Group and the money manager J. Ezra Merkin.  In all, the Madoff trustee has filed 22 lawsuits, seeking to recover more than $32 billion.    [NYT Dealbook, 12/6]