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Bernard madoff case study
Bernard madoff case study
Easy analysis on bernie madoff's scandal
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I’m doing my Case presentation on the Madoff Scandal because I find it very interesting and have heard about it before and wanted to know more details about the story. Like who were the major players and how much money did he really steal from people? Bernard Lawrence Madoff was born April 29, 1938 in New York City. His Parents became involved in financing jobs when he was at a young age and were both suspected of starting a business as a front for his father, Ralph Madoffs’, backhanded dealings. This didn’t affect young Bernard that much because he wasn’t interested in finance at the time, he was like most teenagers and focused more on his girlfriend Ruth Alpern and the swim team he was a part of. His coach then hired him as a lifeguard …show more content…
They had investigated him five different times and come up with nothing, how? I believe that Bernie had an in with the SEC, after all, His daughter had married an SEC employee and his own niece worked there. So there is a fairly good chance that he paid off some people on the inside or maybe they didn’t care to pay close attention because of his family connections. His Scheme had gone on for so long and the amount of money got so large that soon it was going to have to end. In the case of Bernie Madoff, his scheme started to fall apart after clients requested their returns back equaling about $7 billion dollars. The problem was Bernie only had about $300 million to give back. Bernie himself ran off with about $20 billion. (5 Years Ago) Bernie’s’ two sons he had working for him, Mark and Andrew finally blew the whistle to the feds on Bernie’s operation in December 2008, after he admitted that his business was a fraud. The FBI then arrested him the following day. The oldest of the sons, Mark, had hung himself on Dec. 11, 2010, which was the second anniversary of his father’s arrest and the younger brother, Andrew had died of cancer. (Mark and …show more content…
And of that $10 billion only $4.9 billion has been given back to the Mad off victims so far. (Five things) So far there are 16,519 filed complaints to Picard, of that 1,107 have been fully reimbursed and 1,410 are have been partially reimbursed and are eligible for compensation. (Five things) This case was very interesting and I am really glad I chose it for my paper. Its amazing to me how one man with the right connections and social standing can get away with so much for so long. Nobody ever suspected him because he was the father of the NASDAQ, he couldn’t scam people for billions of dollars. And not just any random people, Mad off targeted his own people, the Jews and groups affiliated with him. He was very picky and pretended like he didn’t want to let anyone in on what he was doing which in turn made more people want to get involved and give him even more money, that’s just human
In September 2008, Federal agents swarmed the offices of Tom Petters uncovering a billion dollar Ponzi scheme. A similar case in dimension and scale of the well-known Bernie Madoff case is Tom Petters; the mastermind of a 3.7 billion, fourteen-year long deceit, the second largest Ponzi scheme in the United States. Similarly, Robert Allen Stanford, whose scheme emerged in February 2009 and is thought to have lasted ten years, involving the enormous sum of $8 billion, as well as S. Rothstein, who admitted to managing an approximate 1.2 billion dollars Ponzi scheme at the end of 2009. According to Maglich (2014) Ponzi schemes continue to thrive and leave a trail of financial destruction. “In the first six months of 2014, at least 37 Ponzi schemes were uncovered, with a total of more than $1 billion in potential losses” asserts Maglich (2014). Even though Ponzi schemes eventually collapse, Ponzi schemes remain
After 8 years the SEC finally found the scheme controlled by Madoff. In December 2008 Madoff was found guilty; however, stayed under house arrest by the until his trial in March of 2009. He was not arrested because of the 10-million-dollar payment which allowed him to stay under home surveillance until the trial. While at home, he and his wife, mailed valuables such as jewels and jewelry to family members. In March of 2009, Bernard Madoff was finally found guilty and was sentenced to 150 years in prison. On the day of his arrest, the FBI found 100 checks that totaled $173 million dollars that were made to friends, family, and
“Bernie Madoff began investing in penny stocks in 1960, and due to his impressive work ethic, received several big breaks. The first of which was his father in-law loaning him $50,000 to invest, and soon after, Carl Shapiro, a man who made his fortune in women’s clothing gave Madoff $100,000 to invest on his behalf” (Collins 2011). With this kick-start, Bernie quickly began making a name for him, especially as he promised clients a guaranteed 20% annual return on investment. This, coupled with his firm’s adoption of the latest technology made them a tour-de-force in the investment world. But what makes his eventual downfall more interesting is that he was not just a crook, Madoff did manage a successful, and legitimate brokerage firm. To some extent, the credibility he earned from these legitimate busines...
...y were “earning” that they continued to invest. Most never tried to cash out their earned dividends and had the profits reinvested. There were a few people that did receive their profits and it became known in Madoff’s RICO case that they were all his friends. His friends were able to profit greatly from this scheme. One of his friends Jeffry Picower was able to make $5,771,339,795 from his investments in Madoff’s company. It was well documented in the RICO case that Picower told Madoff how much return on his investment he wanted and then he got that amount. In one particular instance he was able to have over nine hundred and fifty percent returns on his investment. This is an astronomical amount for a return on a stock investment. Picower was one of many believed to have known about the scheme, but most investors did not know they were being scammed.
...the man for whom the scheme is named. It was also the largest investment fraud by a single person. The most important effect of the Madoff scandal is the reformation that occurred in the SEC afterward amid shock at their inability to catch Madoff in the act during their investigation. The enforcement division was revamped to focus on more concerning markets and was more heavily staffed with market experts. The Office of Market Intelligence was created with the responsibility of managing tips. The SEC began to employ more undercover agents and advocate for a protection program for whistleblowers. Back-office personnel oversight was enacted. Additional funding was approved for the SEC. Surprise examinations were approved to ensure the existence of reported assets. In general, the regulating power of the SEC was vastly expanded to prevent similar crimes from occurring.
In May 2002 the SIPC trustee filed a 255.3 million lawsuit against the Madoff family. Madoff company BLMIS ended on December 11 2008 when he was arrested for stealing his customer’s money. For more than 50 years Madoff s company money from people and on June 29th 2009 he pleaded guilty "to 11 counts Complaint and was sentenced as a hundred fifty years in prison"(Lewis, 2013
The Bernie Madoff Ponzi Scheme is a well-known case and is known as one of the biggest Ponzi scheme’s. In summary the scheme occurred for many reasons that I will some up into 3 points; A lack in competency by regulatory agencies, a lack of regulation, and finally a breach in ethics by Bernie Madoff himself. To explain further, the regulatory agencies like the lawyers and SEC are supposed to prevent schemes such as this one from happening but because they lacked the skills to correctly assess the situation, interpreting the number of tips they had received regarding scheme that had been filed, and to act on those in an efficient manner. One of the tips was made by Harry Markopolos in 2000, of who correctly predicted that Madoff was guilty of fraud. Even after this tip from Markopolos, Madoff was not arrested until 2009. Many family members were also a part of the fraud along with some non-family members such as Frank DiPascali and a team known as the 17th floor team, who helped Madoff carry out his fraud. The idea behind Madoff’s fraud was that he would produce false statements of their investments and when people wanted to pull out their investments, the money wasn’t actually there, which rightfully rose more than a few eyebrows and ultimately led to his arrest.
Bernard Madoff had full control of the organizational leadership of Bernard Madoff Investments Securities LLC. Madoff used charisma to convince his friends, members of elite groups, and his employees to believe in him. He tricked his clients into believing that they were investing in something special. He would often turn potential investors down, which helped Bernard in targeting the investors with more money to invest. Bernard Madoff created a system which promised high returns in the short term and was nothing but the Ponzi scheme. The system’s idea relied on funds from the new investors to pay misrepresented and extremely high returns to existing investors. He was doing this for years; convincing wealthy individuals and charities to invest billions of dollars into his hedge fund. And they did so because of the extremely high returns, which were promised by Madoff’s firm. If anyone would have looked deeply into the structure of his firm, it would have definitely shown that something is wrong. This is because nobody can make such big money in the market, especially if no one else could at the time. How could one person, Madoff, hold all of his clients’ assets, price them, and manage them? It is clearly a conflict of interest. His company was showing high profits year after year; despite most of the companies in the market having losses. In fact, Bernard Madoff’s case is absolutely stunning when you consider the range and number of investors who got caught up in it.
He pointed out that BMIS reported only seven small monthly losses in 174 months (14.5 years) (Shafritz, Russell, Borick 2013). The SEC failed to act on any of his information. Markopolis said that he “gift wrapped and delivered the largest Ponzi scheme in history to them and somehow they couldn’t be bothered to conduct a thorough and proper investigation because they were too busy on matters of higher priority (Shafritz, Russell, Borick pg.350).” During subcommittee hearings, claims were made that the SEC is too close to big players in the financial world, causing a fog within the commission. The SEC responded slowly to tips about Madoff’s Ponzi scheme because they did not have the right employees in place. The SEC has relied more on a group of young attorneys and lifelong government employees to do its business (Shafritz, Russell, and Borick, 2013). In the end, Bernie Madoff could not keep up with all his lies when the economy went bad. He turned himself before anybody in the SEC had started an investigation into his Ponzi scheme. Markopolis stated in a 60 minutes interview, “That’s typically how the SEC does it. They come in after the crime has been committed, they toe tag the victims, count the bodies, and try to figure out who the crooks were, after the fact, which does none of us any good (60 minutes interview).
Bernie Madoff is one of the greatest conman in history. The Bernie Madoff scandal takes the gold as one of the top ponzi scheme in America. Madoff started the Wall Street firm, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, in 1960. Starting off as a penny stock trader with five thousand dollars, earned from his workings as a lifeguard and sprinkler installer, his firm began to grow with the support of his father-in-law, Saul Alpern, who helped by referred a group of close friends and family. Originally, his firm made markets by the National Quotations Bureau’s Pink Sheets. However, in order to compete with the bigger firms that were trading on the New York Stock Exchange floor, his firm started to use very intelligent computer software that help distributed their quotes in second’s rater then minutes. This software later became the NASDAQ that we know today. In December of 2008 Bernard Madoff confessed that he had embezzling billions of dollars from investors. It is estimated to have lasted nearly two decades, and stolen approximately $64.8 billion. On December 11, 2008 he was arreste...
Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan Chase made a settlement deal in place of criminal presecution. It is alleged that the bank “looked the other way while working with Madoff as he ran his multibillion dollar scam” (DeCambre). New York Post reports that many efforts of the procecutors of New York expected for JP Morgan to admit to the Ponzi scheme that its financial institution was in on with Madoff. That unfortunately did not happen and instead the bank paid big time.
Jordan Belfort is the notorious 1990’s stockbroker who saw himself earning fifty million dollars a year operating a penny stock boiler room from his Stratton Oakmont, Inc. brokerage firm. Corrupted by drugs, money, and sex he went from being an innocent twenty – two year old on the fringe of a new life to manipulating the system in his infamous “pump and dump” scheme. As a stock swindler, he would motivate his young brokers through insane presentations to rile them up as they defrauded investors with duplicitous stock sales. Toward the end of this debauchery tale he was convicted for securities fraud and money laundering for which he was sentenced to twenty – two months in prison as well as recompensing two – hundred million in restitution to any swindled stock buyers of his brokerage firm (A&E Networks Television). Though his lavish spending and berserk party lifestyle was consumed by excessive greed, he displayed both positive and negative aspects of business communications.
What is the possible meaning of the change in stock prices for Berkshire Hathaway and Scottish Power plc on the day of acquisition announcement? Specifically, what does the $2.55 billion gain in Berkshire’s market value of equity imply about the intrinsic value of PacifiCorp?
Whether this was deliberate or willful blindness Avellino and Bienes were not innocent in their actions. They allowed money to cloud their judgement and didn’t ask important questions. They knew they were misleading investors but as long as they got a fat pay check didn’t care about the people they were lying to. Bienes knew that he should have been licensed and that investment advisors need to register with the SEC. But, he admitted to asking Madoff about it and being told not to register or get licensed. So, shouldn’t this have raised a red flag that something wasn’t right? If everything was legal why wouldn’t you want to register or get yourself licensed? These are just a few questions I think anyone would ask but Bienes and Avellino chose to leave them unasked in order to keep making easy money. Bienes admitted to paying millions on a house and famous paintings and doing very little for the money he was making. All he had to do was dupe people out of their money and he would continue to live a life of luxury. Later when Avellino and Bienes had to shut down their small investment firm, this didn’t even show up as a blip for Madoff to stop his shady business
Jordan Belfort is the notorious 1990’s stockbroker who saw himself earning fifty million dollars a year operating a penny stock boiler room from his Stratton Oakmont, Inc. brokerage firm. Corrupted by drugs, money, and sex, he went from being an innocent twenty – two year old on the fringe of a new life to manipulating the system in his infamous “pump and dump” scheme. As a stock swindler, he would motivate his young brokers through insane presentations to rile them up as they defrauded investors with duplicitous stock sales. Toward the end of this debauchery tale he was convicted for securities fraud and money laundering for which he was sentenced to twenty – two months in prison as well as recompensing two – hundred million in restitution to any swindled stock buyers of his brokerage firm. Though his lavish spending and berserk party lifestyle was consumed by excessive greed, he displayed both positive and negative aspects of business communications.