Martino v. Edison Worldwide Capital (In Re Randy)

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• holding, under section 548(c) of the Bankruptcy Code, that broker services provided to a Ponzi scheme had no value as a matter of law because recruiting new investors into the scheme “would only exacerbate the harm to the debtor’s creditors”
• “[E]nforeing any agreements [for commissions in Ponzi scheme] would only exacerbate harm to the debtor’s creditors. Any contracts of the defendants would be unenforceable, and no value was or could legally be given pursuant thereto to the debtor or the debtor’s bankruptcy estate.”
• proof of intent to run a Ponzi scheme fulfills actual intent to hinder, delay, or defraud
• commission payments to parties who assisted in furtherance of Ponzi scheme are payments made to further illegal contract and, thus, Section 548(e) is not available as shelter for such commission payments
• Ponzi operator “necessarily knew all along that most investors, certainly the latest among them, would lose their money if they invested in his scheme”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).