U.S. court asked to halt Santander's Madoff payout

MADRID (Reuters) - Investors who bought products sold by Santander's Madoff-hit unit Optimal, asked a U.S. judge on Friday to halt the bank's plan to compensate investors, a lawyer for Cremades & Calvo Sotelo told Reuters on Monday.

Cremades & Calvo Sotelo is the Spanish partner of U.S. law firm Labaton Sucharow which acted on behalf of investors who served papers in a South Florida court on Friday.

"The injunction was served by Labaton on Friday and is requesting that the process of signing the contracts to accept Santander's compensation payment be halted," Cremades's lawyer Jose Luis Gonzalez Montes said.

No response has yet been received from the U.S. judge, he said.

Santander announced last week it would compensate all individual clients who invested in the Optimal Strategic U.S. Equity Fund through the issue of 1.38 billion euros in preferential shares with an annual coupon of 2 percent.

El Mundo newspaper said on Monday that the investors are demanding the issue of shares be stopped until the question of whether Santander shared some responsibility for the alleged fraud had been settled, the newspaper said.

Santander declined to comment on the report.

Montes said the injunction served on Friday in the United States does not have any legal impact on Santander in Spain.

"The injunction is against Santander's International Private banking arm and Santander Miami," he said.

"This does not directly affect Santander or the Spanish courts, but obviously if the contract signing process is halted in the U.S. it will affect the bank," he said.

Cremades & Calvo Sotelo has set up a group of clients affected by the Madoff fraud and represents about 100 people who have lost a total of 70 million euros.

Montes said the majority of investors his law firm is representing are not happy with Santander's compensation offer, which he said they have until February 5 to accept.

Santander has repeatedly denied that February 5, which is also the day on which the bank presents 2008 results, is a deadline for the payment.

"The vast majority of the investors we represent are not very happy with the offer," Montes said.

($1=.7783 Euro)

(Reporting by Judy MacInnes; editing by Simon Jessop)