Mr Picard has just submitted his latest bill, for $40m, relating to 97,000 hours of work done in the three months to March. He points to a sum of $533m recovered in that period through the settling of 63 lawsuits. A hearing is due to take place in August to look at this latest bill. The average fee per hour is just over $413.

Other clients

The 14-office firm has about 900 lawyers and its clients include Airbus, Bayer and Microsoft. The law firm says on its website: ' As of April 2014, the...Trustee and his legal teams have recovered or entered into agreement to recover over $9.795 billion and distributed more than $4.888 billion to BLMIS [Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities] customers with allowed claims.' Source: ABA