UK investors are planning legal action against HSBC, UBS, Barclays and Nicola Horlick’s Bramdean fund over advice received before the Bernard Madoff $50 billion (£36.8 billion) investment scandal.

One of the British victims had £36m invested in Madoff funds, according to a lawyer acting for the claimants.

Ten wealthy investors have approached the law firm Edwin Coe with a view to suing bankers, fund managers and other intermediaries for the full value of the money they have lost in the Madoff collapse.

The 10 claimants are said to include some of Britain’s richest people, with combined losses of about £87m. While their identities remain shrouded in secrecy, it is understood that most are entrepreneurs who amassed their fortunes by selling their businesses.

David Greene, head of litigation at Edwin Coe, said the four firms named as intermediaries by his clients were HSBC, UBS, Barclays and Bramdean. “It seems clear that many advisers were either promoting schemes that were flawed or were failing to advise clients on the extent of the risks in many of these schemes.”

Greene said his clients would make a decision in the next few weeks over whether they would launch an action in Britain or join a similar action in America. Edwin Coe has already contested high-profile cases on behalf of Northern Rock and Railtrack investors.

The exposure of Madoff’s investment scheme as little more than a Ponzi scheme has proved embarrassing for some of the most respected names in the Square Mile.

An investment trust overseen by Bramdean recently announced that it had written off £12.4m invested in two hedge funds run by Madoff.

HSBC and Bramdean declined to comment yesterday.

Barclays Wealth said: “Barclays Wealth has a small number of clients with exposure to the alleged fraud by Bernard Madoff through a third-party hedge fund.”

UBS is seeking to distance itself from Luxalpha, a Luxembourg-based fund with large exposure to the Madoff collapse. It said: “UBS has supported wealthy individuals, mainly represented by intermediaries, by establishing a fund structure at their request, as they wished to invest in Bernard Madoff Investments. UBS is not registered as Luxalpha’s manager – UBS acts as custodian of the fund.”

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