NEW YORK (Bloomberg) - Securities Investor Protection Corp., the government-charted agency liquidating Bernard Madoff's defunct business, said $231 million has been committed from its reserves to pay 543 claims by the con man's victims.

The agency, known as SIPC, said yesterday the same claimants were approved to receive as much as $2.74 billion in future payments, depending on how much money is recovered in the wake of Madoff's $65 billion Ponzi scheme. The 543 are the first of thousands of claims to be evaluated, according to SIPC. Today is the deadline for filing claims.

The victims can get as much as $500,000 each from SIPC and more if the trustee, Irving Picard, recovers enough assets.

Madoff, 71, pleaded guilty in March and was sentenced two days ago to 150 years in prison for using money from new customers to pay off earlier investors.

In addition to lawsuits, Mr. Picard has asked hundreds of victims to voluntarily return their "fictitious" profits from Madoff's firm, New York-based Bernard L Madoff Investment Securities LLC.

Mr. Picard, a lawyer at Baker & Hostetler LLP in New York, has been sued by some victims for calculating each investor's loss by subtracting withdrawals from deposits.

Mr. Picard sued Madoff investors including financier Ezra Merkin and philanthropists Stanley Chais and Jeffry Picower. He claims the men knew or should have known of the fraud, and that they profited from years' worth of fake profits.

Mr. Picard's spokesman, Kevin McCue, did not immediately return a call yesterday for comment.