News Release

MEETING OF MADOFF CREDITORS TO TAKE PLACE FRIDAY

WASHINGTON, D.C. – February 19, 2009 – Stephen Harbeck, president of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC), which maintains a special reserve fund authorized by Congress to help investors at failed brokerage firms, and Irving H. Picard, the court-appointed trustee for the liquidation of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC (BLMIS) of New York, NY, issued the following joint statement today:

"On Friday, February 20, 2009, Irving H. Picard, the Court-appointed trustee for the liquidation of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, will preside over the First Meeting of BLMIS Creditors. This meeting will be held at 10 a.m. EST in the Auditorium of the United States Bankruptcy Court.

Due to the logistics and potential burden on Creditors of attending this meeting in person, the Trustee will be providing a listen-only audio facility for this meeting, via a toll-free dial-in telephone number for interested parties.

U.S. callers should dial 1-877-419-6600 (toll free). Those outside the U.S. should dial 719-325-4864. (All international callers must use this toll number, and will have to add the appropriate country code.) Callers will be asked by an operator to identify the call and must state that they are calling for the ‘Madoff First Meeting of Creditors’ to ensure they are placed in the correct call."

About SIPC

The Securities Investor Protection Corporation is the U.S. investor's first line of defense in the event a brokerage firm fails, owing customer cash and securities that are missing from customer accounts. SIPC either acts as trustee or works with an independent court-appointed trustee in a brokerage insolvency case to recover funds.

The statute that created SIPC provides that customers of a failed brokerage firm receive all non-negotiable securities - such as stocks or bonds -- that are already registered in their names or in the process of being registered. At the same time, funds from the SIPC reserve are available to satisfy the remaining claims of each customer up to a maximum of $500,000. This figure includes a maximum of $100,000 on claims for cash. From the time Congress created it in 1970 through December 2007, SIPC has advanced $507 million in order to make possible the recovery of $15.7 billion in assets for an estimated 626,000 investors.

For more information about SIPC, see "The Investor's Guide to Brokerage Firm Liquidations". 

MEDIA CONTACTS:Kevin McCue, for Trustee Picard, (216) 861-7576, or kmccue@bakerlaw.com.; Ailis Aaron Wolf, for SIPC, (703) 276-3265, or aaaron@hastingsgroup.com. All investor inquiries of SIPC should be directed to asksipc@sipc.org or (202) 371-8300.