Recovery of funds from the Madoff investment scandal

There have been attempts for the recovery of funds from the Madoff investment scandal. The Madoff Trustee, Irving Picard, reports recoveries and settlement agreements of $11.079 billion, of which $9.271 billion has been distributed or committed to victims of Bernard Madoff.

As it has been concluded that no legitimate investments were made on the investors' behalf for at least the last 12 years, recovery has proceeded on a "money-in/money out" basis, without regard to the false investment statements provided to investors. These false statements, representing what investors believed they owned, combined to a total balance of approximately $64 billion. In a series of payments now up to a sixth round, victims have recovered $9.16 billion, more than half of the $17.5 billion reportedly invested. An additional $320 million is expected to be forthcoming after the resolution of further pending litigation, and an additional $4 billion recovered from forfeiture actions has yet to have been distributed. Of the tens of thousands of claimants, about 1300 have been made whole: recovered to the extent of their initial investments. The accounting of "funds stolen" in this matter excludes inflation, interest, time invested, opportunity cost, and falsely reported balances. The interpretation of the laws do not consider time value of money when reimbursing lost funds.

Madoff's combined assets are about $826 million and have been frozen. Madoff provided a confidential list of his, and his firm's assets to the SEC on December 31, 2008, which was subsequently disclosed on March 13, 2009, in a court filing. Madoff had no Individual Retirement Accounts, no 401(k), no Keogh Plan, no other pension plan and no annuities. He owned less than a combined $200,000 in securities in Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanley, Fidelity Investments, Bear Stearns, and M&T Bank. No offshore or Swiss bank accounts were listed.

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