The Journal reports out the “serial regulatory failures” that allowed Bernard Madoff to perpetuate the bigges Ponzi scheme in history. And in a particularly nice catch, the paper finds Obama’s nominee for SEC chairwoman, Mary Schapiro, has some explaining to do:
The failure to stop Mr. Madoff also is an embarrassment for Mary Schapiro, the Finra chief who has been nominated by President-elect Barack Obama as the next SEC chairman. Finra was involved in several investigations of Mr. Madoff’s firm, concluding in 2007 that it violated technical rules and failed to report certain transactions in a timely way.Ms. Schapiro declined to comment…
Finra’s full-scale examination in 2007 indicated that parts of Mr. Madoff’s firm had no customers. It didn’t provide an explanation of this finding. “At this point in time we are uncertain of the basis for Finra’s conclusion in this regard,” SEC staff wrote last month, after Mr. Madoff was arrested.
“We don’t have access to that document, nor have we received any feedback from the SEC on our examinations of the Madoff broker-dealer,” said Nancy Condon, a spokeswoman for Finra.
It will be interesting to see what happens when reporters and investigators pull on that thread some more.
Meanwhile, the WSJ details a litany of missed opportunities by the SEC, which ran across Madoff as far back as 1992—one of at least eight times regulators investigated him over the years.
It’s a good effort by the paper, and the story is well-timed for the opening of congressional hearings on the SEC today. Those should be fun.
In other news, Bloomberg has the Madoff headline of the day:
Madoff Investor Awaits Verdict on Whether ‘Imbecile’ or ‘Dupe’
MADOFF SHOULD BE IN JAIL AND TRIED FOR THE MURDER OF RENE-THIERRY MAGON DE LA VILLEHUCHET. His life was ruined on epic proportions that most of the population can't wrap their puny brains around and they are so ignorant and small as to begrudges this man his success and have no empathy for his plight. He lost everything and could not go on with such a loss. I get it. I too was taken by a ponzi scheme in 2008 my brother in law was part off.........FAMILY! I only lost 35% of my net worth at $500,000. to witch It will be impossible to recover in my lifetime. My life and my kids childhood is forever hugely changed. It was not greed that brought me to it, it too offered 9-12% witch is NOT to good to be true! , it was good business, but with the wrong person! Financial scams of this proportion need to have much more severe punishment for the titanic carnage and number of lives they have ruined and forever changed and not the small slap on the wrists they have received in the past.Villehuchet killed himself over the criminal actions of Madoff stealing his fortune, NO OTHER REASON and they where friends.
MADOFF SHOULD BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR HIS DEATH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
#1 Posted by Cari, CJR on Fri 16 Jan 2009 at 12:11 PM