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The Madoff Investment Scandal broke in December 2008, when former NASDAQ Chairman Bernard Madoff and founder of the Wall Street firm Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, admitted that the wealth management arm of his business was an elaborate Ponzi scheme. Madoff founded the Wall Street firm Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC in 1960, and was its Chairman until his arrest.〔 〕 The firm employed Madoff's brother Peter as Senior Managing Director and Chief Compliance Officer, Peter's daughter Shana Madoff as rules and compliance officer and attorney, and Madoff's sons Andrew and Mark. Peter has since been sentenced to 10 years in prison, and Mark committed suicide by hanging exactly two years after his father's arrest. Alerted by his sons, federal authorities arrested Madoff on December 11, 2008. On March 12, 2009, Madoff pleaded guilty to 11 federal crimes and admitted to operating the largest private Ponzi scheme in history.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 date =December 13, 2008 )〕 On June 29, 2009, he was sentenced to 150 years in prison with restitution of $170 billion. According to the original federal charges, Madoff said that his firm had "liabilities of approximately US$50 billion". Prosecutors estimated the size of the fraud to be $64.8 billion, based on the amounts in the accounts of Madoff's 4,800 clients as of November 30, 2008.〔 Ignoring opportunity costs and taxes paid on fictitious profits, half of Madoff's direct investors lost no money.〔(Prosecutors say half of Bernie Madoff's investors lost nothing in Ponzi scheme ), a September 23, 2009 article from the New York ''Daily News''. Retrieved September 23, 2009.〕 It is also the largest accounting fraud in American history. Investigators have determined others were involved in the scheme. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has also come under fire for not investigating Madoff more thoroughly; questions about his firm had been raised as early as 1999. Madoff's business, in the process of liquidation, was one of the top market makers on Wall Street and in 2008, the sixth-largest. Madoff's personal and business asset freeze created a chain reaction throughout the world's business and philanthropic community, forcing many organizations to at least temporarily close, including the Robert I. Lappin Charitable Foundation, the Picower Foundation, and the JEHT Foundation. ==Background== Madoff started his firm in 1960 as a penny stock trader with $5,000, earned from working as a lifeguard and sprinkler installer.〔 His fledgling business began to grow with the assistance of his father-in-law, accountant Saul Alpern, who referred a circle of friends and their families. Initially, the firm made markets (quoted bid and ask prices) via the National Quotation Bureau's Pink Sheets. In order to compete with firms that were members of the New York Stock Exchange trading on the stock exchange's floor, his firm began using innovative computer information technology to disseminate its quotes. After a trial run, the technology that the firm helped develop became the NASDAQ. At one point, Madoff Securities was the largest buying-and-selling "market maker" at the NASDAQ.〔 He was active in the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD), a self-regulatory securities industry organization, serving as the Chairman of the Board of Directors and on the Board of Governors.〔 (Archive )〕 In 1992, ''The Wall Street Journal'' described him:
Several family members worked for him. His younger brother, Peter, was Senior Managing Director and Chief Compliance Officer,〔 and Peter's daughter, Shana Madoff, was the compliance attorney. Madoff’s sons, Mark and Andrew, worked in the trading section,〔 along with Charles Weiner, Madoff’s nephew. Andrew Madoff had invested his own money in his father's fund, but Mark stopped in about 2001.〔(Probe Eyes Role of Aide to Madoff, Accountant ). ''The Wall Street Journal'', December 23, 2008.〕 Federal investigators believe the fraud in the investment management division and advisory division may have begun in the 1970s. However, Madoff himself stated his fraudulent activities began in the 1990s. In the 1980s, Madoff's market-maker division traded up to 5% of the total volume made on the New York Stock Exchange.〔 Madoff was "the first prominent practitioner" who paid a broker to execute a customer's order through his brokerage, called a "legal kickback", which gave Madoff the reputation of being the largest dealer in NYSE-listed stocks in the U.S., trading about 15% of transaction volume. Academics have questioned the ethics of these payments. Madoff has argued that these payments did not alter the price that the customer received.〔 He viewed the payments as a normal business practice: "If your girlfriend goes to buy stockings at a supermarket, the racks that display those stockings are usually paid for by the company that manufactured the stockings. Order flow is an issue that attracted a lot of attention but is grossly overrated." By 2000, Madoff Securities, one of the top traders of US securities, held approximately $300 million in assets.〔 The business occupied three floors of the Lipstick Building, with the investment management division, referred to as the "hedge fund", employing a staff of approximately 24. Madoff ran a branch office in London, separate from Madoff Securities, which employed 28, handling investments for his family of approximately £80 million. Two remote cameras installed in the London office permitted Madoff to monitor events from New York. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Madoff investment scandal」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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