News, Madoff Investors Ordered to Return False Profits. (2009, real estate, buy)

[John1960]

NEW YORK -- The trustee trying to unravel Bernard Madoff's massive pyramid scheme is threatening legal action to recover $735 million from investors who unwittingly made money off the swindle.


For decades, Madoff paid out steady profits to his clients, telling them the money had been earned in the stock market.

Moneynews - Madoff Investors Ordered to Return False Profits

[tallrick]

Seriously, I doubt that this clawback idea is even legal. Some wealthy investor is going to challenge this in court and set a legal precedent.

[GregW]

I certainly hope it is legal under the concept of recovering stolen goods after a robbery.

[sonarrat]

If anyone deserves a clawback, it's the SIPC which covered their losses with our tax dollars!

[pghquest]

Originally Posted by tallrick

Seriously, I doubt that this clawback idea is even legal. Some wealthy investor is going to challenge this in court and set a legal precedent.

The problem for some of these investors is they probably took their profits, invested it into other ventures like real estate, and we all know where that money went..

[texdav]

Threatenig a suit shuld be the title. I doubt this can be done in any timelt manner even if successful.

[sunsprit]

It's the proceeds of stolen money.

The same as what Madoff accumulated millions are derived from. As much stolen money as possible ... even if it was received in good faith by Madoff's investors ... needs to be returned to the folks it was stolen from.

[CarolinaCowboy]

This court order will be tied up in the court for a decade or more. None of these "investors" who turned a profit will willingly give back their profits. And from a legal standpoint, I'm not sure they have to. Soooo much complexity to all this.

Basically this was just a gigantic pyramyd scheme. The same concept Amway and a zillion other mlm companies have modeled after. Only it involved hard raw cash. The person getting in, always paid off the guys at the top and then it trickled back down. It was a simple concept and design.

There are no less then 25 legal loopholes these investors who made a profit cn hide behind before even having to think about handing over their $. It will never happen in my opinion.

[subsound]

That's silly, if they knew...get 'em. If they didn't know they shouldn't be harassed. So many people invested, and so many looked at it, including rating agencies, and approved it for investing...it looked legit as humanly possible. It's not like some one selling goods out of the back of a truck, this is like selling stuff from Best Buy over years and expecting people to give back the items because they got good deals.

[pghquest]

Originally Posted by texdav

Threatenig a suit shuld be the title. I doubt this can be done in any timelt manner even if successful.

They've done it numerous times before, and usually are sucessful if they can prove the profits were made from illegally.