Picard is one bad a$$ trustee!! He is a real hero. He should receive a congressional medal of honour!
$1.67 billion??!! Wow that's steep but given the size of the funds that he needs to recover it's probably a standard rate. Well at least he's working hard for his money, not all trustees do and that's good enough for the victims. He should get both, the fee AND the medal.
Yeah, from reading the article is sounds like this is the classic case where you either "save" $1.5B and recover only a couple $B by hiring a guy who does a standard job or you "waste" $1.5B to hire a guy who pushes past existing case law to claw back unearned ponzi profits in a way never before done and recover $13B. In this case "wasting" your money on this guy was most probably the more profitable route for everyone but the Koch brothers and their ilk.
Yeah but given the size of the funds that needs to be recovered, that $1.67 billion might be the standard fee though. It's 5%. I dunno what's the going rate for liquidation trustees but Picard's role is a bit unique; he's not just distributing assets that's there to the people who's entitled to them like in a routine liquidation, he has to find assets that's not there that the people are still entitled to, get them back and give them back to their rightful owner. He's like a fraud superhero but without a cape! And his formula is absolutely correct if you think about it. Madoff really didn't make anything for his "investors" because it was not a legitimate investment it's a fraud scheme; his "fund" was making 0% return the entire time that he ran it so if an "investment" has made nothing how can you withdraw more than you have deposited? The difference between whoever deposited and withdrew is obviously what Madoff took from "Peter" to pay "Paul" and those money don't belong to "Paul" but actually "Peter". Do you get to keep the money that you get for conning somebody? If not, then why do those "early investors" like the Koch brothers get to keep theirs? Those Koch brothers should just suck Picard's dick, one on each side and then hand over their ill-gotten gains on bent knees. If they keep their money then they are just as guilty as Madoff and should rightfully go to jail as Madoff's accomplices. As a matter of fact, I am surprised that they are not as they helped Madoff to transfer his money to off-shore accounts according to one article that I read.
At least 2 people have committed suicide as a result of this ponzi scheme. If they knew they'd get 70 cents on the dollar I bet things wouldn't have seemed so bad. Kinda sad really.
Well those 2 people didn't kill themselves because they felt they lost money belonging to others and they couldn't recover them anymore, no they killed themselves because they felt they lost honor and trust of others that they could ever regain. It's ironic isn't it that the person who really has no honor and doesn't give a shit about honor is still alive enjoying his hotel jail and the people who really had the honor or at least more honor actually chose to die. This world is full of ridiculous paradoxes.