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Madoff verdict: The SEC is plain incompetent
A lengthy report examining the many ways the Securities and Exchange Commission botched its investigations of Bernie Madoff tells us something we already knew: the SEC can be awfully incompetent.
The report by the SEC Inspector General quickly dispenses with the notion that regulators either protected Madoff or covered-up their investigatory failures. But that’s the best that can be said for the SEC in this massive undertaking.
For now, the IG has released a 22-page summary of his findings. But a full 450-page book, outlining all the gory details of regulatory bungling, will hit the shelves in the coming days.
SEC Chair Mary Schapiro commenting on the IG’s findings says Madoff is a “failure we continue to regret.” She says the agency is already reforming its ways and promises not to miss the next $65 billion Ponzi scheme.
from Rolfe Winkler:
“Madoff: Can’t believe I got away with it”
Great stuff from ABC News this morning:
"There were several times that I met with the SEC and thought 'they got me,'" Madoff told Joseph Cotchett, a San Francisco lawyer threatening to sue his wife, sons and brother on behalf of a group of victims.
Madoff opened up to the lawyer because he's going after his wife, whom he still cares about (and who still has liquid assets...)
Petters, the forgotten Ponzi
The alleged $3 billion Ponzi scheme involving Tom Petters has never gotten the attention it deserved.
Some of that is because the case broke open right around the time Lehman Brothers was filing for bankruptcy. And given that the scandal took place in Minnesota and involved mainly midwestern hedge funds funneling money to Petters operation, it didn’t galvanize the attention of the East Coast media.
SEC is still fumbling the ball
Maybe someday the Securities and Exchange Commission will figure out what to do when it gets a credible tip about potential wrongdoing. But judging by the agency’s handling of a recent investor complaint, the nation’s top securities cop has a long way to go.
This tale begins in March, when an investor in Britain sent an email to Bill Singer, a New York securities lawyer, complaining about a cold call he had received from someone purporting to be from a brokerage firm in Peoria, Illinois, calling itself AJ Witherspoon & Co. The call was an effort to interest him in a transaction involving shares in a company called SecureTee International.
What sentence should a Ponzi get
Federal prosecutors are sort of boxing themselves in when it comes to sentencing requests for big Ponzimeisters.
Bernie Madoff, the king of Ponzis, got 150 years. And now federal prosecutors in NY are seeking an almost equally as punitive 145-year sentence for Marc Dreier, the mastermind of a much, much smaller Ponzi that fleeced some hedge funds out of some $400 million.
Stanford gets Madoffed
It appears the punishing 150-year sentence meted out by a federal judge to Ponzi king Bernie Madoff is already having legal reprecussions.
A day after Madoff was sentenced to spend the rest of his life and then some in a federal prison, another federal judge in Texas sided with prosecutors in ordering R. Allen Stanford to remain in jail pending a trial on his own Ponzi-related charges. Now there’s no definitive connection between the Madoff sentencing and the ruling in the Stanford case, but it’s hard not to see some cause-and-effect.
Tough questions after Madoff
Even as Ponzi king Bernard Madoff goes away to prison for the rest of his life and then some, there are still so many unanswered questions — both big and fundamental.
Were Madoff’s sons involved? What did his wife Ruth know? Were the operators of the giant feeder funds that sucked in tens of billions of dollars in investor money in on the charade?
Investors go mad
The global financial meltdown apparently has prompted some German investors to take justice into their own hands.
If the press reports are true, it appears a group of investors allegedly kidnapped and tortured a financial advisor who lost them a boatload of money. Now revenege is never the way to go, especially when there are authorities to take care of this sort of thing.
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The Wall
