Irving Picard, the trustee overseeing the bankruptcy of Bernard Madoff’s investment firm, spent $26.9 million in the six months ended Sept. 30 while recovering $849,000 for victims of Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, according to a report filed in Manhattan federal court.

Picard has recovered a total of about $1.5 billion for creditors of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, he said in a filing with U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Burton Lifland made public Oct. 30. The trustee said he evaluated 14,030 investor claims as of Oct. 22 and approved 2,280. He has committed to paying $738 million on behalf of the Securities Investor Protection Corp., which is obligated to compensate cheated investors as much as $500,000 on most claims, according to the report.

The largest component of the expenses for the half-year period is $15.8 million in legal fees to Picard’s firm, Baker & Hostetler LLP. Most of the money recovered in the six-month period, $771,000, came from Madoff investors who received preferences, or payments, in the 90 days before the bankruptcy filing, according to Picard’s report.

Amazon and the state of North Carolina have been fighting in court as NC tries to get residents that purchased on Amazon to pay sales tax the state feels it is owed. NC has demanded that Amazon reveal all sorts of buyer information like names, addresses, and the exact products purchased so it can asses sales tax on the items.

Amazon has refused to give specifics on what was purchased, though it did provide the names and addresses of buyers to NC authorities. Amazon has won a temporary reprieve in court with the judge presiding over the case stating that NC has "no legitimate need" to have details about purchases revealed to it.

However, the court said that the state could destroy the information is has now and then request new information from Amazon that would not be able to be tie a specific product to a specific user. Undoubtedly, NC will request this information and the courts will force Amazon to provide it setting a precedent none of us wants to think about.

Dairy processors can make claims that their products are free of a synthetic growth hormone, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday in striking down parts of the state's rule on milk labeling.

Key parts of the state's labeling rule violated First Amendment rights to commercial free speech, a three-judge panel of 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled.

The Organic Trade Association and the International Dairy Foods Association sued the Ohio Department of Agriculture in 2008 over a state rule on how consumers are informed about whether milk is made from cows that were given a synthetic hormone.

The trade groups argued that the rule is too restrictive. It prohibits composition claims such as "antibiotic-free" and "pesticide-free," violating their free speech rights and impeding interstate commerce, the groups argued.

The appeals court reversed a lower court decision on the free speech issue, concluding that the state's ban is "more extensive than necessary to serve the state's interest in preventing consumer deception." The appeals court agreed with a lower court ruling that the rule does not impede interstate commerce.

Billionaire investor Warren Buffett said the U.S. economy remains in recession, disputing this week's assessment by a leading arbiter of economic activity that the downturn ended more than a year ago.

"We're still in a recession," Buffett told CNBC television in an interview broadcast on Thursday. "We're not gonna be out of it for a while, but we will get out."

On Monday, the National Bureau of Economic Research said the world's largest economy ended an 18-month recession in June 2009, but cautioned that its assessment did not mean normal activity had resumed.

Buffett said he defines a recession differently from the NBER, saying it ends when real per capita gross domestic product returns to its pre-downturn level.

President Barack Obama said on Monday that economic weakness is "still very real" for the millions of Americans who are out of work, have seen the value of their homes fall, or are mired in debt.

North Dakota's Supreme Court said a bank acted reasonably when it charged a customer almost $12,000 in overdraft fees. Lynette Cavett of Enderlin said the fees were "unconscionable." But a judge ruled the Quality Bank of Fingal disclosed the fees and Cavett paid them for four years without complaining. The Supreme Court upheld the ruling Tuesday.

Court records said Cavett challenged the fees when the bank sued her in November 2008 to foreclose on her hog farming operation and collect a $76,000 debt.

Court records said from January 2004 until June 2008, Cavett was charged 842 overdraft fees. They varied according to the overdraft amount. The bank charged $100 a day for carrying an overdraft greater than $10,000.

Regulators on Friday shut down three Georgia banks and one each in New Jersey, Ohio and Wisconsin, boosting to 125 the number of U.S. bank failures this year amid the tough economic climate and growing loan defaults.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. on Friday took over the Georgia banks: Bank of Ellijay, in Ellijay, with $168.8 million in assets; First Commerce Community Bank of Douglasville, with $248.2 million in assets; and Peoples Bank, based in Winder, with $447.2 million in assets.

The FDIC also seized ISN Bank in Cherry Hill, N.J., with $81.6 million in assets; Bramble Savings Bank of Milford, Ohio, with $47.5 million in assets; and Maritime Savings Bank, based in West Allis, Wis., with assets of $350.5 million.

Community & Southern Bank, based in Carrollton, Ga., agreed to assume the assets and deposits of Bank of Ellijay, First Commerce Community Bank and Peoples Bank. In addition, the FDIC and Community & Southern Bank agreed to share losses on $602.5 million of the three failed banks' loans and other assets.

Georgia, where the meltdown in the real estate market brought an avalanche of soured mortgage loans, has been one of the hardest hit states for bank collapses. The failures of the three banks Friday brought to 14 the number of Georgia banks that have fallen this year. Also high on the list of failure-heavy states are California, Florida and Illinois.