Union Bancaire Privée (UBP) has liquidated the Ucits III fund it launched just three months ago after manager Mark Kurland was charged with insider trading alongside Galleon Group founder Raj Rajaratnam.

The Swiss private bank confirmed in a statement that it is liquidating the New Castle Market Neutral US Equity Fund.

The fund was launched in July as the first in a range of Ucits hedge funds and had over $50 million in assets under management (AUM).

Kurland was arrested alongside fellow New Castle manager Danielle Chiesi and Rajaratnam in New York last week. Together with executives at IBM and Intel and a consultant at McKinsey, the trio is accused of insider trading bolstering profits by $20 million.

New Castle Funds was founded by Kurland, Bob Reitzes and Scott Merves in 2008, spinning off the management of three funds and two managed accounts developed at Bear Stearns.

As of August 30 this year New Castle, based in New York, had a total of $926 million AUM.

Earlier in October UBP's alternative investments marketing and business development head Bertrand Bricheux told Hedge Funds Review New Castle had been selected for the range of Ucits funds because of its strong track record.

Speaking to this magazine at the fund's UK launch, Kurland said: "We think over the years we have really honed our skills and have established enough strong goodwill among the companies that we follow that we think that gives us a little bit of an edge over the competition."

The New Castle fund was a sub-fund of UBP's Luxembourg-based SICAV, Union Bancaire Asset Management (UBAM).

Hedge Funds Review understands UBP will continue with its plans for Ucits hedge fund products despite the New Castle liquidation.

The liquidation comes less than a year after UBP was forced to write down losses sustained by funds of hedge funds advised by the bank through exposure to Bernard Madoff's fraudulent investment scheme.