Bernard Madoff – Overlawyered

Banking and finance roundup

Walter Olson — Thu, 09 Jan 2014 04:05:06 +0000

Still money left in that piggy bank: Justice Department shakes $1.7 billion out of J.P. Morgan because its custody wing kept handling a primary Bernie Madoff account while a distant equity desk grew suspicious of him, in what “looks a bit like a tax on bigness and integration” [Matt Levine, Bloomberg; NPR].
Legacy of TARP one of cronyism and lawlessness [Mark Calabria, USA Today]
NYT assails a couple of academics as mouthpieces for Wall Street, Felix Salmon has a bit to say about that [Reuters, EconBrowser, Bainbridge, Pirrong] Daniel Fisher on a possible tie-in with Times reporter David Kocieniewski’s earlier piece flaying Goldman Sachs over aluminum warehousing [Forbes]
“Court Receptive to Overturning SEC’s Conflict Minerals Disclosure Rule” [Fed Soc Blog]
“Target Breach — Are Dodd-Frank ‘Swipe Fee’ Price Controls to Blame?” [John Berlau, CEI “Open Market”] “Volcker Rule Overshoots Wall Street to Hit Utah” [same]
“CFPB and Disparate Impact” [Hester Peirce, Point of Law]
“It might cost you $39K to crowdfund $100K under the SEC’s new rules” [Sherwood Neiss, VentureBeat via @jerrybrito]
Here’s a novel proposal for corporate governance: use the rules agreed upon by the original parties to the transaction [Hodak]

Tags: banks, Bernard Madoff, corporate governance, disparate impact, Dodd-Frank, expert witnesses, New York Times, Securities and Exchange Commission, TARP

Banking and finance roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

May 26 roundup

Walter Olson — Sun, 26 May 2013 04:05:10 +0000

“New Study: U.S. Legal System Is World’s Most Costly” [Daniel Fisher, Ted Frank on Chamber/NERA study]
“Madoff lawyers collect $700 million in fees” [CNN Money]
“How insurance substitutes for regulation” [Omri Ben-Shahar and Kyle Logue, Regulation, PDF]
On the Founders’ concept of rights as embodied in Declaration of Independence [Ray Hartwell, American Spectator; and thanks for reference to my book Schools for Misrule]
“A Glass Half Full Look at the Changes in the American Legal Market” [Benjamin Barton, SSRN]
Oooh, a whole WordPress site devoted to ripe-for-rediscovery social scientist Edward Banfield [Kevin Kosar: Edward C. Banfield, An Online Resource]
“Q. How does one go from editing an adult magazine to practicing law?” [Susannah Breslin interviews Dan Kapelovitz]

Tags: Bernard Madoff, insurance, Schools for Misrule

May 26 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

“Devil’s Bargain: Wall Street and the Martin Act”

Walter Olson — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 10:15:11 +0000

My new op-ed at the New York Post looks at the history of Spitzer-to-Cuomo-to-Eric Schneiderman prosecutorial overreach and asks: how exactly did the New York Attorney General come to have so much power with so little constraint? (& welcome Instapundit, Real Clear Markets, Timothy Carney/Examiner, CEI readers)

More: I and others have written about the act here and at Point of Law.

Tags: Andrew Cuomo, attorneys general, Bernard Madoff, Eliot Spitzer, Eric Schneiderman, New York, prosecution, securities litigation

“Devil’s Bargain: Wall Street and the Martin Act” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Mopping up the Madoff mess

Walter Olson — Sun, 27 Feb 2011 13:32:34 +0000

$1.3 billion in fees are headed toward lawyers and consultants [FT via Salmon]

Tags: Bernard Madoff

Mopping up the Madoff mess is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

December 20 roundup

Walter Olson — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 13:13:51 +0000

Texas Gov. Rick Perry may urge the state to take a step toward loser-pays [NJLRA]
“FCC push to regulate news draws fire” [The Hill]
Could litigation on behalf of Madoff victims get more than all their money back? [Salmon, more, NYT, Above the Law]
“Chevron Says Documents Show Ecuador Plaintiffs Worked With Government” [Dan Fisher/Forbes, more]
Organized trial lawyers expect to fare less well in next Congress, but prospects for actual liability reform remain slender [Joseph Weber/Wash. Times, Matthew Boyle/Daily Caller]
Mount Laurel rulings in New Jersey (towns given quotas to build low-income housing) described as “libertarian”, I express doubts [Hills, Prawfsblawg]
Criminal law’s revolving door: “prosecutors turn up the fire and then sell extinguishers” [Ribstein, TotM]
The wages of unconstitutionality: a Utah attorney’s curious fee niche [five years ago on Overlawyered]

Tags: Bernard Madoff, broadcasters, Chevron, loser pays, New Jersey, prosecution, Texas, Utah

December 20 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Claim: Goldman Sachs should have insisted he give them his money

Walter Olson — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 12:02:04 +0000

Business Insider and the NYLJ have details.

Tags: Bernard Madoff

Claim: Goldman Sachs should have insisted he give them his money is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

March 2 roundup

Walter Olson — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 16:12:51 +0000

“Trial Lawyers vs. Toyota” [Holman Jenkins, Jr./WSJ] Rep. Towns’s hearing didn’t even pretend to be other than showcase for trial bar [Wood, PoL; Henry Payne coverage in National Review here, here, here, and here] And make way for the inevitable investor suits [Daily Breeze]
“Obama open to curbing medical malpractice suits” [AP/WaPo] Related: The Hill; advice from Newsweek’s Evan Thomas [Jim Pinkerton]
Why doesn’t the Securities and Exchange Commission hire finance people? “They’re overlawyered. They’re poisoned by lawyers.” [Harry Markopolos interviewed by Deborah Solomon, N.Y. Times]
“Plaintiffs Lawyer’s ‘Reptile’ Strategy Bites Back” [Fulton County Daily Report] Plus: Max Kennerly wonders why it was admitted into evidence;
“Facebook plus divorce equals flammable situation” [Tampa Bay Online]
Officials get wined, dined and more: “Paying public pensions to sue” [Forbes]
Parents sue many defendants in Colorado ice cream shop crash [Denver Post]
Called for jury duty yesterday, and Tweeting the results: arts critic/biographer Terry Teachout and conservative writer Michelle Malkin.

Tags: Bernard Madoff, Colorado, divorce, Facebook, Georgia, medical malpractice, securities litigation, shotgun defendant selection, Toyota, Twitter

March 2 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Unpersuasive claims of victimhood dept.

Walter Olson — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 04:18:59 +0000

“Madoff’s Accountant Acknowledges Guilt, Casts Himself as Victim” [NLJ]

Tags: Bernard Madoff

Unpersuasive claims of victimhood dept. is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

“Golden receivers”

Walter Olson — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 16:02:31 +0000

Fees for receivers, administrators and other professionals are eating up too much of the remaining assets of Madoff and other collapsed investment ventures, critics charge: “in one recent $6.6 million fraud, the receiver distributed 43 percent of the assets to the victim — the rest went to professionals.” [NY Post]

Tags: bankruptcy, Bernard Madoff, feeing frenzy

“Golden receivers” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

“Plaintiff’s lawyer talks to Madoff in prison”

Walter Olson — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 12:55:22 +0000

The mega-fraudster has turned down innumerable interview requests from others, and was not as forthcoming with prosecutors as they might have liked either, but apparently had a cordial and productive chat Tuesday with high-profile San Francisco plaintiff’s lawyer Joseph Cotchett, who pronounced the scoundrel “an absolute gentleman” and said he “answered every single question”. [Amir Efrati, WSJ Law Blog]

Tags: Bernard Madoff

“Plaintiff’s lawyer talks to Madoff in prison” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system