Swiss bank ‘ignored Madoff alarm bells’

Private Swiss bank Union Bancaire Privée faces tough questions over allegations that it kept hundreds of millions of dollars of its wealthy clients' money in Bernard Madoff's alleged pyramid scheme despite warnings from its own research team.

UBP, one of the world's biggest investors in global hedge funds, acted as a feeder fund to Madoff and has about $700 million (£477 million) in Madoff-related investments.

But UBP's research department in early 2007 had raised various concerns about Madoff's business, and later recommended that he be taken off a list of approved fund managers, insiders told the Wall Street Journal.

UBP executive Christophe Bernard was among those who recommended against investing with Madoff and the paper says that some of the bank's most senior executives were aware of the concerns.

Meanwhile, accused fraudster Madoff will appear at a hearing today in a Manhattan federal court, where US prosecutors are still trying to have him jailed.

An earlier decision by a magistrate kept Madoff out of prison and confined to his $7 million New York apartment.