A third interim distribution of funds from the liquidation of Bernard L Madoff Investment Securities has begun, the SIPA trustee, Irving Picard, announced.

The third round of payments, amounting to $506.2 million, will bring the total funds returned to victims of the Ponzi scheme to $5.44 billion, according to an update from the Securities Investor Protection Corporation. This includes committed advances of around $807.2 million from the SIPC.

“Since December 2008, $9.32 billion has either been recovered or agreements reached to recover funds to return to BLMIS customers. This amount is more than 53 per cent of the approximately $17.5 billion in principal estimated to have been lost by BLMIS customers who filed allowed claims,” the SIPC said in a statement.

In the third distribution, allowed claim holders will receive approximately 4.721 per cent of the allowed claim amount of each individual account, unless the claim is already fully satisfied. These payments lead to 1,106 accounts being fully satisfied, out of a total of 2,178 accounts with allowed claims.

The average payment in this distribution is approximately $459,000 and the largest payment is approximately $116 million.

The funds mainly come from an allocation of around $1.2 billion from the Tremont Funds settlement.

“Significant recoveries remain on hold, however, pending appeals and court rulings. Our twin priorities are not only to continue building the customer fund with additional recoveries, but also to keep pushing hard for resolutions that will enable further distributions this year,” said Picard.

“While we cannot predict the timing of the next distribution, we expect that 2013 will bring significant advances on a number of legal fronts, particularly in international matters,” said David Sheehan, chief counsel to the SIPA trustee. “We are confident in our legal positions and we look forward to more good news this year for BLMIS customers.”