U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

WASHINGTON : 

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800

Fax: (202) 512–2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC 20402–0001

62–683 PDF 2011

ASSESSING THE LIMITATIONS OF THE 

SECURITIES INVESTOR PROTECTION ACT 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CAPITAL MARKETS, 

INSURANCE, AND GOVERNMENT 

SPONSORED ENTERPRISES 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

SEPTEMBER 23, 2010 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Financial Services 

Serial No. 111–158 

( 

(II) 

HOUSE COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES 

BARNEY FRANK, Massachusetts, Chairman 

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania 

MAXINE WATERS, California 

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York 

LUIS V. GUTIERREZ, Illinois 

NYDIA M. VELA ́ ZQUEZ, New York 

MELVIN L. WATT, North Carolina 

GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

DENNIS MOORE, Kansas 

MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts 

RUBE ́ N HINOJOSA, Texas 

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri 

CAROLYN MCCARTHY, New York 

JOE BACA, California 

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts 

BRAD MILLER, North Carolina 

DAVID SCOTT, Georgia 

AL GREEN, Texas 

EMANUEL CLEAVER, Missouri 

MELISSA L. BEAN, Illinois 

GWEN MOORE, Wisconsin 

PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire 

KEITH ELLISON, Minnesota 

RON KLEIN, Florida 

CHARLES A. WILSON, Ohio 

ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado 

JOE DONNELLY, Indiana 

BILL FOSTER, Illinois 

ANDRE ́ CARSON, Indiana 

JACKIE SPEIER, California 

TRAVIS CHILDERS, Mississippi 

WALT MINNICK, Idaho 

JOHN ADLER, New Jersey 

MARY JO KILROY, Ohio 

STEVE DRIEHAUS, Ohio 

SUZANNE KOSMAS, Florida 

ALAN GRAYSON, Florida 

JIM HIMES, Connecticut 

GARY PETERS, Michigan 

DAN MAFFEI, New York 

SPENCER BACHUS, Alabama 

MICHAEL N. CASTLE, Delaware 

PETER T. KING, New York 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California 

FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma 

RON PAUL, Texas 

DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois 

WALTER B. JONES, JR., North Carolina 

JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois 

GARY G. MILLER, California 

SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia 

JEB HENSARLING, Texas 

SCOTT GARRETT, New Jersey 

J. GRESHAM BARRETT, South Carolina 

JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania 

RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas 

TOM PRICE, Georgia 

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina 

JOHN CAMPBELL, California 

ADAM PUTNAM, Florida 

MICHELE BACHMANN, Minnesota 

KENNY MARCHANT, Texas 

THADDEUS G. McCOTTER, Michigan 

KEVIN McCARTHY, California 

BILL POSEY, Florida 

LYNN JENKINS, Kansas 

CHRISTOPHER LEE, New York 

ERIK PAULSEN, Minnesota 

LEONARD LANCE, New Jersey 

JEANNE M. ROSLANOWICK, Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

(III) 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CAPITAL MARKETS, INSURANCE, AND GOVERNMENT SPONSORED

ENTERPRISES

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania, Chairman 

GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts 

RUBE ́ N HINOJOSA, Texas 

CAROLYN MCCARTHY, New York 

JOE BACA, California 

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts 

BRAD MILLER, North Carolina 

DAVID SCOTT, Georgia 

NYDIA M. VELA ́ ZQUEZ, New York 

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York 

MELISSA L. BEAN, Illinois 

GWEN MOORE, Wisconsin 

PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire 

RON KLEIN, Florida 

ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado 

JOE DONNELLY, Indiana 

ANDRE ́ CARSON, Indiana 

JACKIE SPEIER, California 

TRAVIS CHILDERS, Mississippi 

CHARLES A. WILSON, Ohio 

BILL FOSTER, Illinois 

WALT MINNICK, Idaho 

JOHN ADLER, New Jersey 

MARY JO KILROY, Ohio 

SUZANNE KOSMAS, Florida 

ALAN GRAYSON, Florida 

JIM HIMES, Connecticut 

GARY PETERS, Michigan 

SCOTT GARRETT, New Jersey 

TOM PRICE, Georgia 

MICHAEL N. CASTLE, Delaware 

PETER T. KING, New York 

FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma 

DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California 

JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois 

SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia 

JEB HENSARLING, Texas 

ADAM PUTNAM, Florida 

J. GRESHAM BARRETT, South Carolina 

JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania 

JOHN CAMPBELL, California 

MICHELE BACHMANN, Minnesota 

THADDEUS G. McCOTTER, Michigan 

RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas 

KEVIN McCARTHY, California 

BILL POSEY, Florida 

LYNN JENKINS, Kansas 

(V) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hearing held on: 

September 23, 2010 .......................................................................................... 1 

Appendix: 

September 23, 2010 .......................................................................................... 41 

WITNESSES 

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 2010 

Borg, Joseph P., Director, Alabama Securities Commission ................................ 8 

Caruso, Steven B., Partner, Maddox, Hargett, & Caruso, P.C. ........................... 15 

Coffee, John C., Jr., Adolf A. Berle Professor of Law, Columbia Law School .... 11 

Hammerman, Ira, Senior Managing Director and General Counsel, Securities 

Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA) ..................................... 13 

Johnson, Hon. Orlan M., Chairman of the Board, Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC) ....................................................................................... 10 

APPENDIX 

Prepared statements: 

Kanjorski, Hon. Paul E. ................................................................................... 42 

Borg, Joseph P. ................................................................................................. 44 

Caruso, Steven B. ............................................................................................. 59 

Coffee, John C., Jr. ........................................................................................... 64 

Hammerman, Ira .............................................................................................. 78 

Johnson, Hon. Orlan M. ................................................................................... 87 

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

Kanjorski, Hon. Paul E.: 

Written statement of Ronnie Sue Ambrosino, Coordinator, Madoff Victims 

Coalition ......................................................................................................... 99 

Letter from Stephen P. Harbeck, President, Securities Investor Protection 

Corporation (SIPC), dated February 22, 2010, containing responses to 

questions posed at the Capital Markets Subcommittee’s December 9, 

2009 hearing .................................................................................................. 105 

Letter to Stephen P. Harbeck, President, Securities Investor Protection 

Corporation (SIPC), dated March 4, 2010, in response to Mr. Harbeck’s 

February 22nd letter .................................................................................... 116 

Letter to Stephen P. Harbeck, President, Securities Investor Protection 

Corporation (SIPC), dated August 20, 2010, regarding the subcommittee’s September 23, 2010 hearing ................................................................ 118 

Letter from Stephen P. Harbeck, President, Securities Investor Protection 

Corporation (SIPC), dated September 7, 2010, in response to Chairman 

Kanjorski’s August 20th letter ..................................................................... 120 

Written statement of Ron Stein, President, Network for Investor Action 

and Protection (NIAP) .................................................................................. 128 

(1) 

ASSESSING THE LIMITATIONS OF THE 

SECURITIES INVESTOR PROTECTION ACT 

Thursday, September 23, 2010 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CAPITAL MARKETS, 

INSURANCE, AND GOVERNMENT

SPONSORED ENTERPRISES, 

COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES, 

Washington, D.C. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:03 a.m., in room 

2128, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Paul E. Kanjorski 

[chairman of the subcommittee] presiding. 

Members present: Representatives Kanjorski, Ackerman, Hinojosa, Baca, Klein, Perlmutter, Carson, Childers; Garrett, King, and 

Jenkins. 

Also present: Representative Moore of Kansas. 

Chairman KANJORSKI. This hearing of the Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance, and Government Sponsored Enterprises 

will come to order. 

Pursuant to committee rules and prior discussions with the ranking member, each side will have 10 minutes for opening statements. 

Without objection, all members’ opening statements will be made 

a part of the record; and I yield 5 minutes to myself. Nearly 2 years have passed since the massive $65 billion Madoff 

Ponzi scheme came to light. Since then, we have enacted the DoddFrank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Among 

many other things, this law amended the Securities Investor Protection Act, the statute that works to return money and securities 

to customers of failed brokerages. 

To better protect the customers of failed brokerages going forward, the Dodd-Frank Act increases cash protection limits and bolsters the resources of the Reserve Fund used to replace customers’ 

missing cash and securities. This new law also triples penalties for 

misrepresentations of membership in or protections offered by the 

Securities Investor Protection Corporation. Moreover, the statute 

makes important changes to prevent rather than simply replace 

the loss of customers’ property, including new custody safeguards 

for customers’ assets held by certain financial professionals. 

The Dodd-Frank Act additionally requires the auditors of brokerdealers to register with the Public Company Accounting Oversight 

Board, and this body has the authority to regulate these market 

gatekeepers. This change ought to put incompetent and unscrupuVerDate Nov 24 2008 16:03 Jan 11, 2011 Jkt 062683 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 K:\DOCS\62683.TXT TERRIE
2 

lous one-man-auditor shops like the one which blessed the books of 

the Madoff brokerage out of business before investors get harmed. 

Much more, however, remains to be done to protect investors. 

The victims of the Madoff Ponzi scheme and the Stanford Financial 

fraud include many hard-working families and frugal retirees who 

invested their hard-earned money with now imprisoned or indicted 

con artists. Numerous press stories have related accounts about 

how these victims who sought to play by the rules have now had 

to greatly modify the ways they live. The victims of these frauds 

believe that SIPC has fallen short in meeting the responsibilities, 

and they want change. I do, too. 

We therefore have many questions to explore today. For example, 

although SIPA’s protections do not currently extend to customers 

of investment advisers, we must explore the issue of expanding 

SIPA’s coverage, as investment advisers may also commit fraud. 

In any serious efforts to reform SIPA, we must also consider 

what responsibilities SIPC has to honor the broker statements that 

customers receive. SIPC has denied the claims of customers based 

on seemingly legitimate paperwork provided to them by the brokers. Yet SIPC expects customers to use those very same statements to report unauthorized trading in their accounts. This inconsistency is unacceptable, and we must work to resolve it. 

Investor trust, for which SIPA was designed to preserve, has 

been seriously eroded by SIPC’s narrow interpretations of its statutory mandate. While SIPC’s actions may follow the letter of the 

law, many would argue that SIPA has ignored the spirit of the law. 

We therefore must consider the best way to change the tone of 

SIPC and refocus this body on maintaining confidence in the financial system and promoting investor protection. 

To the extent possible, we ought to also explore how SIPC could 

learn from the success of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation in maintaining the public’s trust. To address these questions 

and many others, SIPC has focused on the Modernization Task 

Force, and several members of this panel will appear before us 

today in their personal capacities. I expect this Task Force to complete its work with great transparency, considerable outreach, and 

much speed. Moreover, this Task Force must view its mission as 

broadly as possible and work to provide Congress with a comprehensive plan for reform. 

In closing, we can further improve SIPA by building on the reforms of the Dodd-Frank Act. The witnesses before us today are 

recognized securities experts. Their recommendations, along with 

those offered by the Madoff victims at our hearing last December, 

will undoubtedly help us in our work to update SIPA and better 

protect investors. 

The Chair recognizes the gentleman from New Jersey for 10 minutes. 

Mr. GARRETT. Thank you. 

‘‘As mad as I am at Madoff, I am even more upset at my own 

government over the way I have been treated in the aftermath of 

this fraud.’’ That is the gist of a quote from one of my constituents 

who was defrauded by Bernie Madoff and who feels failed by the 

FCC and FINRA in protecting him while the fraud was going on 

and who now faces a specific trustee who is threatening to claw 

3 

back funds he withdrew from his made-up account over the course 

of the last 15 or 20 years. 

In a sense, these innocent investors are being held to a higher 

standard than both the government that was supposed to protect 

them and that gladly took their tax payments and the organization, 

SIPC, that was supposedly set up to protect them while installing 

and instilling greater confidence in our securities market. 

We are holding today’s hearing to assess the limitations of the 

Securities Investors Protection Act (SIPA), and the Securities Investors Protection Corporation (SIPC), and to identify whether 

there are potential reforms that would better protect the investors. 

It would seem to me that one major and fundamental reform 

would be for them, through the actions of the trustee as appointed, 

to see itself as an advocate for, rather than an adversary against 

innocent defrauded investors so that they feel as though they are 

being assisted by the SIPC process rather than hunted down and 

accused somehow of them doing some sort of wrongdoing. 

So there is one piece of legislation that is out there that could 

go at least part of the way in making things right for once and potentially twice victimizing the Madoff investors. A colleague of 

mine in New Jersey, Bill Pascrell, has introduced a bill, H.R. 5058, 

called the Ponzi Scheme Victims Tax Relief Act. What it would do 

is liberalize the ability of those who are victims of theft to receive 

a refund for taxes that they paid on gains that the SIPC trustee 

is now trying to take back from them. I am a cosponsor of this bill, 

which actually should go a little further than the 10-year look-back 

since their trustee is going back further than 10 years in calculating the so-called net winners and losers. 

Another aspect of the trustee’s handling of this case is now in the 

process of working the way through the court systems in which 

matters will be decided. I am concerned, though, about a looming 

deadline that is coming up, and that is in December, when the 

trustee will decide whether to go forward with potentially thousands of claw-backs from these innocent defrauded investors. 

SIPC leadership and the trustee have indicated that they will not 

be going after the so-called ordinary people, people who are not 

leading a lavish lifestyle and who had no knowledge of the fraud. 

But if you hear from my office or my staff, that is not what I am 

hearing from my constituents and others and the people I talk to 

when I go back at home. 

I spoke with one gentleman who years ago withdrew money to 

pay for college and who lives a very modest lifestyle now. He contacted the trustee’s firm to get clarification that he wouldn’t be 

clawed back, but he was told that, other than forgiving a small percentage of what the trustee had calculated that he owed, he otherwise looks like he would be on the hook for the rest. In addition, 

he was told that anything he might recover in the form of tax refund, that, too, might be subject to seizure by the trustee. 

So I am also concerned that while these court cases are under 

way, the SIPC trustee has denied access to Madoff’s records for 

their victims and attorneys. Access to these records is important for 

several key aspects of the case, including whether or not all transactions reported by Madoff over the years were actually fraudulent 

4 

transactions. If some of them weren’t, then the trustee’s net equity 

formulation would completely be called into question. 

Inequitable access to these records results in a fundamental imbalance of the scales of justice in this case and also calls into question whether ultimately there will be a fair trial at the end of the 

day in this case. 

So all of this, when you think about it, should make all of us feel 

very uncomfortable. The SIPC decal is supposed to mean protection. The SEC was supposed to provide protection. The IRS, taking 

the tax payment, also serves as a government imprimatur. SIPC is 

supposed to provide up to $500,000 in protection based on ‘‘reasonable expectation of customers.’’ In fact, SIPC was created at the behest of the securities industry to encourage confidence in a more 

efficient paperless process, where investors would no longer have 

the piece of mind one gets from holding on to the actual stock certificate like we used to do in the old days. In their place, customers 

grew accustomed to depending on trade confirmations and account 

statements which were regulated, of course, by the SEC and 

FINRA to set their reasonable expectations that they should have. 

As I said earlier, though, instead of SIPC meeting investors’ reasonable expectations, now it seems as though they are blaming the 

victims instead. Instead of customers being able to rely on their account statements to calculate their SIPC protection, they are basically at the mercy of the trustee’s formulation of net equity that 

doesn’t take into account for consideration interest earning or the 

time value of money. Nor does this so-called customer-friendly 

methodology take into account the receiving of SIPC protection as 

separate and distinct from the distribution of asset recovers. 

One of the results, unfortunately, is a SIPC that has clearly lost 

the trust of many investors as well as the trust of many Members 

of Congress as well. So this hearing, Mr. Chairman, is timely. SIPC 

clearly needs the SIPC Modernization Task Force to assist in its 

refocusing on its proper role going forward. So I do look forward 

to the testimony we will hear and the questioning from this panel. 

With that, I yield back. 

Chairman KANJORSKI. Thank you, Mr. Garrett. 

We will now hear from the gentleman from New York, Mr. Ackerman. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Thank you very much, Chairman Kanjorski, for 

calling this very important hearing. 

It has been nearly 2 years since Bernard Madoff confessed to 

masterminding the largest and longest-running Ponzi scheme in 

history and turned himself in. After that fateful day in December 

2008, the Securities Investor Protection Corporation, which is 

tasked with insuring victims of broker fraud of failure and recovering assets from the fraud of those victims, received over 16,000 

insurance claims from Madoff’s innocent victims. Of them, to date, 

SIPC has granted only 2,200. 

That means that right now, at this very minute, many, if not 

most, of the over 13,000 innocent victims of Bernard Madoff who 

for years reasonably thought that they were entitled to SIPC insurance on the balance of their accounts in the unlikely event that 

their investments were entangled in a broker-dealer fraud or failVerDate Nov 24 2008 16:03 Jan 11, 2011 Jkt 062683 PO 00000 Frm 00010 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 K:\DOCS\62683.TXT TERRIE
5 

ure instead are destitute and out of luck. And those are just the 

investors who filed actual claims. 

What crime did these investors commit? These 13,000 people and 

their families, like millions and millions of people who invest in our 

markets, put their trust in our financial system, its regulators, and 

its safeguards. Two years after Madoff turned himself in, 2 years 

after these 13,000 people have been turned away time and time 

again from the protection to which they reasonably believed they 

were entitled, it has become very clear that Madoff robbed them, 

our system betrayed them, and our government failed them. 

Who is responsible? Who caused this problem? Who do we turn 

to? Who do the victims turn to? 

Now, people have reasonable expectations of government, its 

agencies, and the organizations that are created by them. Where 

I come from, if the police don’t do their job and stand idly by when 

terrible things happen, if a doctor just stands around and doesn’t 

do what he is supposed to do, if emergency responders show up in 

the ambulance and just sit and watch the accident, people wind up 

suing those agencies and the city and the municipality and the government for negligence. Someone is liable. Whether it is because of 

incompetence or misfeasance or malfeasance, somebody is responsible for not fulfilling the reasonable expectations that people have 

and come to rely on. 

And here in the Federal Government, if there is not a legal responsibility, there certainly is a moral responsibility for creating 

the climate that people depended on. That we have failed these investors is heartbreaking enough in terms of human tragedy, but 

the damage that has been done to investor confidence at this critical time in our economic and financial recovery as a result of our 

failure to safeguard and protect these innocent Madoff victims and 

our country’s negligence in leading them to believe that they were 

insured is as frightening as it is self-defeating. 

Today’s hearing will focus on the Securities Investor Protection 

Act and the present and future role of SIPC in providing insurance 

to investors in our markets that they are protected, really protected, not fake protected, against broker-dealer fraud or failure. It 

is my strong hope that this hearing is a prelude to the subcommittee’s consideration of the Ponzi Scheme Investor Protection Act, a 

bipartisan bill that I have introduced along with numerous members of this subcommittee in the House to provide some relief to 

many of those innocent victims of Ponzi schemes of all kinds who 

have been spurned by SIPC and to proactively assure investors in 

our securities markets that they are protected against fraud, regardless of its scope or longevity. 

Mr. Chairman, thank you very much again for scheduling the 

hearing, and I, too, look forward to hearing from our witnesses. I 

yield back the balance of my time. 

Chairman KANJORSKI. Thank you, Mr. Ackerman. 

Now, we will hear from the other gentleman from New York for 

2 minutes, Mr. King. 

Mr. KING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

At the outset, let me thank you very much for holding this hearing. I know it is important to get on to the hearing, so I will keep 

my remarks brief. 

6 

I want to fully identify myself with the statement of Mr. Garrett 

both in precise content and also in spirit. The fact is that the investors of Madoff were let down, were failed by our government, by 

SEC, by FINRA. Despite numerous reasons why this fraud should 

have been stopped, it wasn’t. 

So these investors made the mistake of: number one, relying on 

Madoff; and number two, and more importantly, relying on our 

Federal Government. And now that they are victims, they are 

being treated by the trustee as if they were co-conspirators of 

Madoff, rather than victims. 

I have done some practice of law over the years, and when you 

listen to the investors and you listen to the tactics and methods 

being used against them by the trustee, it is similar to people 

under indictment or under investigation by the grand jury, by the 

United States Attorney, by the SEC, that years of records are being 

demanded going back 10, 15, 20 years. Every excuse or every possibility has been looked at by the trustee to try to suck people into 

this, to bring them in. Not giving them the benefit of the doubt but 

again treating them as if they were criminal defendants rather 

than victims. 

And to me, as my good friend Mr. Ackerman said, at a time when 

we are trying to rebuild investor confidence, we are sending the 

worst possible message to investors to show that not only the government lets them down, but, in effect, the government allows the 

trustee to go after them when they are victims as if they are guilty 

themselves. And we are talking about people who have already lost 

millions of dollars because of this Ponzi scheme of Madoff now having to spend millions and millions of dollars in legal fees to defend 

themselves. When our government should be working to help them, 

the government is going out of its way and the trustee is going out 

of its way to make them victims again. 

I find this entire process wrong. I think sometimes we can get 

caught in our universe when we start debating how many angels 

can dance on the head of a pin and not realizing that good, good 

people who have been hurt once are being hurt even worse by the 

tactics of this trustee. So I think it is important to keep that in 

mind as we go forward and debate the technicalities and legalities, 

realize the moral harming that is being done here. 

With that, I yield back the balance of my time. 

Chairman KANJORSKI. Thank you, Mr. King. 

The gentleman from Colorado, Mr. Perlmutter, is recognized for 

1 minute. 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I agree with one point raised by Mr. Garrett and Mr. King, and 

I disagree with another point. 

To start where we disagree, in terms of the timing of this, it was 

under an SEC and under the Administration of George Bush, and 

there was really not a lot of police on Wall Street even though Mr. 

Markopolos raised the red flags a dozen times. So you have to take 

a look at who is in office to decide whether the system is working 

or not. But it did not work well at that time. 

I agree with the gentleman that this is insult added to injury. 

That really is what we are talking about here, and that seems to 

be the unfairness of the system, that individuals who, through no 

7 

real—they weren’t active participants in a fraud. They were innocent victims of a fraud perpetrated by Mr. Madoff. There should be 

an opportunity for them to recover, either through their taxes, 

through claims with SIPC, or to not have to face a claw-back if 

they are not active participants. And the law I think is a real problem in this arena and needs to be changed, and I look forward to 

working with the gentleman on these very subjects. 

Thank you. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. [presiding] The Chair will recognize Mr. Childers 

for 3 minutes. 

Mr. CHILDERS. Thank you. 

I want to thank the chairman first for holding this important 

and very timely hearing to address the Securities Investor Protection Act, and I thank our witnesses for being here today. 

This subcommittee has looked at a number of issues related to 

SIPA during this Congress, focusing on the Madoff Ponzi scheme 

as well as the Stanford Financial Ponzi scheme. I am here today 

as an advocate of the victims of the Stanford Financial scheme. 

While the victims of the Madoff scheme and the Stanford Financial scheme live throughout our country, I realize that, but too 

many of those Stanford Financial scheme victims live in the district 

that I serve, the northern portion of Mississippi. They are north 

Mississippi families who now live an uncertain future. They invested much of their life savings in certificates of deposit with the 

Stanford Group Company, a SIPC member and registered brokerdealer. 

It is estimated that in Mississippi alone, our families lost $68 

million. That is no small matter to me and to the State of Mississippi. SIPC has denied coverage to the Stanford victims when 

the SEC had the jurisdiction to file enforcement action against 

Stanford in 2009. These investors purchased securities they didn’t 

get. They purchased them from an SIPC member. 

SIPC’s entire function is to return securities to customers of a 

broker-dealer when a firm becomes insolvent. There are several legalities to the case for extending SIPC coverage to Stanford victims, and I don’t want to get into all of that, but these investors 

are ordinary Americans, ordinary Mississippians who planned and 

saved for a retirement that they may never enjoy, and they deserve 

the protection assured by the SIPC member Stanford Group Company. 

As we examine ideas to improve SIPA and work towards a resolution for making these Stanford victims whole, I urge all participants to keep these victims and their hard-working families in 

mind and the fact that they worked, many times, a lifetime to accumulate this money that they have lost. 

I yield back my time. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Thank you very much. 

We will now hear from our panel of witnesses. Thank you very 

much for appearing before the subcommittee today, and, without 

objection, your entire written statements will be made a part of the 

record. You will each be recognized for 5 minutes to summarize 

your statement or present it in any way you see fit. 

We will get right down to it. First, we have Mr. Joseph Borg, director, Alabama Securities Commission. 

8 

Mr. Borg. 

STATEMENTS OF JOSEPH P. BORG, DIRECTOR, ALABAMA 

SECURITIES COMMISSION 

Mr. BORG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Garrett, 

and members of the subcommittee. I am Joe Borg, director of the 

Alabama Securities Commission, and I thank you for the invitation 

to participate today. 

Our office has administrative, civil, and criminal authority under 

the Alabama Securities Act; and we have brought dozens of investigations of Ponzi and pyramid schemes, illegal blind pools, fraudulent private placement offerings, and other scams which have led 

to numerous enforcement cases and criminal prosecutions. 

I have submitted written testimony which has additional details 

and discussion of the bullet points I will outline here today. 

Here are some of my particular areas of concern: 

First is the levels of protection. It is my belief that the level of 

protection with regard to SIPC funds should be increased from 

$500,000 to $1 million. A large portion of retirement savings consists of securities investments, and most people just do not leave 

huge amounts of retirement money in banks. It is at the brokerage 

houses. The $1 million level of protection would also match SIPC’s 

Canadian counterpart, the Canadian Investor Protection Fund 

(CIPF), which is currently at $1 million Canadian. I also believe 

that the levels of protection should be indexed to inflation, and indexing would allow some incremental measure of increased protection going forward. 

On the issue of fictitious securities, a major issue is the treatment of claims based on a securities position which never actually 

existed. There are conflicts between decisions from the Second and 

Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, and I believe that part of the problem stems from SIPA’s distinction between cash and securities. 

The disparate protection between claims for cash and securities should be eliminated. For example, if I have $500,000 of securities, 

I sell $350,000 and the brokerage house is closed before I either 

cash the check or the money is still in the account, I have just lost 

$100,000 because of the $250,000 limit. 

I would also note that the Canadians eliminated the distinction 

between claims for cash and claims for securities back in 1998. In 

a discussion with SIPC staff, a change in favor of eliminating the 

cash versus securities distinction would not alter the risk models 

used by SIPC. 

The next item is the increase in the line of credit from Treasury. 

If we expect continued growth in the securities market and a 

change of coverage to perhaps $1 million cash of securities and you 

index it to reflect inflation, it may require an increase in the line 

of credit for Treasury. I know it hasn’t been tapped so far in history, but we have asked the SIPC staff to review the effect of protections at the $1 million level. 

It is my personal feeling that a line of credit of $5 billion 

matched with reserves of $5 billion from the industry would be an 

appropriate amount going forward. At the current level of assessments, it will take a number of years to reach the $2.5 billion 

level—I think the staff has told us about 5 years—but I think if 

9 

we target for $10 billion and we start to be—let’s be realistic and 

start planning for them now, that planning should start now. 

On assessments, prior to the enactment of Dodd-Frank, SIPC had a floor of $150, ridiculously low. There are now some SIPC 

members, though, who pay zero assessments because of the change 

in the law. I think that is just an unintended consequence. It is my 

belief that there should be a minimum assessment of some amount, 

perhaps $1,000. I would prefer a range somewhere of $2,000 to 

$2,500. 

Also, I was very surprised to learn that in computing assessments, revenues on mutual funds are not included; and I am of the 

opinion that since all investors benefit from protection, or should 

benefit from protection, and broker-dealers benefit from SIPC 

availability, that revenues on mutual funds should be included for 

assessment purposes as well. 

I would also suggest that anytime a target level is reached, whether it is $1 billion, $2.5 billion, or $5 billion, there should be 

another determination of whether assessments are adequate based 

on the current level of investors’ assets in the markets. 

Let me suggest that the current arrangement with the Treasury 

for the line of credit that exists, which is now a term loan, should 

actually be a revolving loan in order to ensure continuity and flexibility in the ability of SIPC to protect investors where and when 

needed. 

On investor education, the general public has the misconception 

that SIPC is some type of insurance, just like FDIC is insurance 

for banks. If we are going to make a change, it is going to change 

the entire dynamic. And I am not suggesting we don’t change it, 

but I think that the parameters of what this Task Force is going 

to look at will change depending on congressional intent. If it was 

not intended to be insurance for fraud but only for replacing cash 

and securities, I think this misconception was exacerbated by references to FDIC, tying the amounts of coverage to the same levels 

as FDIC, and a comparison by the broker-dealer community who 

tapped specific protection levels. 

Suggestion to fix it: TV ads and seminars and publications are 

great, but that is not how you are going to educate the public. Include in the brokerage statements every quarter or every month 

that they go out a section on SIPC protection, what it is, but, more 

importantly, what it is not. I think you are going to need a constant education effort on a regular basis to get over the misconceptions that have occurred. 

And I wouldn’t do an insert. You know what I do with inserts. 

You throw them away and you read the statement. It needs to be 

part of the brokerage statement. I know that SIPC does not have 

the power to do that. That would have to come from SEC and 

FINRA. 

I know my time is up. I have submitted materials with regard 

to indirect investing, with regard to retirement plans and hedge 

funds. I think they ought to be matched up to the way that FDIC 

and FCUA are looking through those procedures at the present 

time, utilizing the IRS Code 401(d), 408, and including 457 plans. 

And I would lastly say, in conclusion, that under international 

relations, I have been specifically tasked by the Task Force to look 

10 

into matters involving international involvement of SIPC. SIPC 

just became a member of the International Securities Organization 

(IOSCO), as an affiliate member. Some of the things we are going 

to look at I think would be formal rules on cross-border protection, 

create a dispute resolution mechanism with a team of experts—this 

is from the Lehman Brothers matter—establish cooperative principles, and develop a platform for exchange of information. 

I thank you again for the invitation and the opportunity to be 

here today, and I will be happy to answer any questions. Thank 

you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Borg can be found on page 44 of 

the appendix.] 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Thank you, Mr. Borg. 

Next, we have the Honorable Orlan Johnson, the chairman of the 

board of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE ORLAN M. JOHNSON, 

CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD, SECURITIES INVESTOR PROTECTION CORPORATION (SIPC) 

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman Kanjorski, Ranking Member Garrett, and members of 

the subcommittee, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to 

appear before you today to discuss the work of SIPC and the possible improvements to the Securities Investor Protection Act. 

I am Orlan Johnson, and I am the chairman of SIPC. I also serve 

as chairman of the SIPC Modernization Task Force, which is conducting a complete and comprehensive review of SIPC’s operations 

as well as the changes to SIPA. 

The Task Force was convened on June 17th of this year, and it 

consists of a very wide range of experts. We are in the midst of a 

review of all the considerations that are necessary from a statutory 

standpoint, from a procedural standpoint, and other reforms as it 

relates to SIPA and SIPC. 

At my confirmation hearing before the Senate Banking Committee last December, I made crystal clear that my intent from the 

beginning was to come in and to have a comprehensive review; and 

this review is being undertaken. Chairman Kanjorski thereafter 

contacted us and suggested a number of important topics for the 

Task Force to consider, and today I will briefly describe SIPC and 

the work of the Task Force, in addition to providing responses to 

issues that the subcommittee presented to me in their letter dated 

September 16th. 

The Task Force has drawn its members from all ranks, from all 

parts of the United States. We have drawn from the ranks of State 

regulators, attorneys who represent investors, academia, the securities industry, and the trustee of the largest securities brokerage 

insolvency in history. We have included also the chairman of 

SIPC’s counterpart in China and an observer from the SEC. We anticipate that the diversity of viewpoint results in what I would call 

a rigorous analysis of the issues that concern investors today. 

We have begun our work in earnest, and we are examining the 

extent of protection and also the problems that have occurred as 

a result of indirect investors, the use of bankruptcy avoidance powVerDate Nov 24 2008 16:03 Jan 11, 2011 Jkt 062683 PO 00000 Frm 00016 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 K:\DOCS\62683.TXT TERRIE
11 

ers, and other fundamental issues of concerns to investors and to 

Congress. 

We anticipate that some of our recommendations are not going 

to make everyone happy. Nevertheless, it is the role of this Task 

Force to have everything on the table, all aspects of what we need 

to be looking at, all aspects of what needs to be reviewed. 

We have also created a public input platform on our Web site in 

which the public is invited to share their comments for all to see. 

We have also undertaken a major public outreach to ensure that 

as many investors as possible will learn about this process and get 

an opportunity to participate. 

In using our Web site portals, we have conducted an open online 

forum. We did our first one on September 14th. We have another 

one that is going to be taking place fairly soon. We also are hoping 

to organize a live event so that we can have members of the public 

present their views directly to the Task Force. 

After discussion of some of the issues, several members of the 

Task Force have volunteered to help us draft a number of recommendations which we intend to present to the SIPC board, and 

it is our goal to get a full set of recommendations sometime in the 

early part of the first quarter of 2011. 

My written submission to the committee addresses a number of 

the specific issues of concern to Congress, and SIPC’s work is the 

focus of attention as it never has been in the last 40 years. The 

Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act 

amended SIPA and gives SIPC a new and different role in the 

wind-down of systemically significant financial conglomerates 

where a SIPC member brokerage firm is involved. I would hope 

that the Task Force will soon present additional recommendations 

that will lead to additional legislation and to further enhance and 

update the SIPC program of investors. 

In conclusion, I want to assure the subcommittee that the Task 

Force is making progress and will continue its work aimed at developing and recommending substantial reform to SIPA and SIPC. 

I would like to thank you for the time, and I would like to thank 

you for having members of our Task Force with you. I would be 

pleased to answer any questions that the members of the subcommittee may have. 

Thank you again, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Johnson can be found on page 

87 of the appendix.] 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Thank you very much, Chairman Johnson. 

Next, we have Mr. John Coffee, the Adolf A. Berle Professor of 

Law at Columbia University. Mr. Coffee. 

STATEMENT OF JOHN C. COFFEE, JR., ADOLF A. BERLE 

PROFESSOR OF LAW, COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL 

Mr. COFFEE. Chairman Kanjorski, I have only two points to 

make in my brief remarks: There are things Congress should do to 

amend, extend, and modernize the Securities Investor Protection 

Act, but, too, there are things Congress should not do. My hopes 

for what Congress could do must be balanced against my fears of 

what Congress might do. The first rule always has to be, do no 

12 

harm; and I think there are some harms here in some of the potential reforms. Let me start with my hopes. 

I agree very much with Mr. Borg’s comments. I think I won’t 

cover the same ground he has covered, so let me start with a different point. Congress should extend the definition of ‘‘customer’’ to 

reach beneficial and indirect owners in a variety of collective investment vehicles. Americans today invest through collective investment vehicles. The highest priority should be to cover the 

smaller pension funds and other collective investment vehicles 

where typically the legal owner has failed or neglected to inform 

the covered broker of all of the individual accounts that are represented in that collective fund. The presumption, the strong presumption should be in favor of a pass-through approach. That is 

what both the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Act and the 

Federal Credit Union Act already adopted over a decade ago. 

SIPA, the Securities Investor Protection Act, is behind the pack 

in not having adopted a pass-through approach that reaches the 

beneficial and indirect owners. Such a pass-through approach is superior to what is being provided and proposed in H.R. 5032, which 

only amounts to a $100,000 advance to the indirect owner, and it 

requires the indirect owner to waive their right to sue the feeder 

funds who put them into the Ponzi scheme. I can see no reason in 

the world why Congress wants to exempt bodies like Fairfield 

Greenwich that appear to have behaved very, very recklessly, at 

the least. 

Now I realize that what I am saying, that we should cover beneficial or indirect owners, would be costly for SIPC; and, thus, I 

think it is necessary to prioritize. I don’t think I would initially try 

to cover the large mutual fund or the very large pension fund because they are, by law, diversified and cannot suffer really significant losses from a Ponzi scheme, but the smaller funds and the 

smaller pension funds would be my priority to cover first. 

And, yes, this may require some increase in the assessment 

which right now starts at one-half of 1 percent of your gross revenues until the fund reaches a certain size. I think the average 

small businessman in America spends more than one-half of 1 percent of their gross revenues on covering insurance and similar 

costs. 

My basic point, though, is we now have a system that doesn’t 

cover the smaller person, because they are more likely to be the 

person who is in the indirect position of being a beneficial owner. 

The next point—which Mr. Borg also said and I will say it very 

briefly—I think we should abolish the distinction between cash and 

securities. It produces arbitrary distinctions because it is a happenstance what your account consists of on the moment that the 

broker-dealer fails. 

Now, on the other side of the ledger, there are proposed reforms 

that I would urge Congress not to adopt. Particularly, I would advise you against limiting the powers of the SIPC trustee to sue the 

net winners in a Ponzi scheme. Because in reality, Ponzi schemes 

are composed of net winners and net losers. To the extent we protect the net winners, we injure the net losers. When Mr. Pickard, 

the Madoff trustee, sues the net winners, he is not giving that 

money to the Federal Government. He is seeking to aid the net losVerDate Nov 24 2008 16:03 Jan 11, 2011 Jkt 062683 PO 00000 Frm 00018 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 K:\DOCS\62683.TXT TERRIE
13 

ers. Although I can sympathize with the position of some of the net 

winners, their experience was far less tragic, far less traumatic 

than that of the net losers; and I don’t think Congress should subordinate the net losers to the net winners. 

I note that Mr. Pickard has filed as of April some 14 actions seeking $14.8 billion. Those 14 actions are not against poor, 

unsuspecting people. They are against very large entities. And if 

5032 passes in its current form, I think the settlement value would 

be dramatically reduced. 

Thus, I am urging you in my written testimony that if you want 

to do something for the net winners that you think are 

unsuspecting, unfortunate victims, it would be better to create either a de minimus exception saying no recovery until the fictitious 

profits go above a certain level, or use what I will call an imputed 

interest factor. Say if you put money in 10 years ago, you are entitled to at least a 10 percent return a year, and that would double 

the recovery. But if you use the current approach, there are going 

to be people who, according to a published article in the Wall 

Street Journal, have offered to settle in the neighborhood of $2 billion in just one case who we are going to find that the settlement 

value of that kind of recovery will be greatly reduced because it is 

going to be very difficult to prove anybody was complicit in 

Madoff’s fraud or that they are negligent, where they will say they 

were relying on audited financial information. 

Lastly, in just one second, I do think the approach taken in the 

Financial Services appropriation bill which would compel the SIPC 

to cover all the losses in the Stanford scandal probably goes beyond 

what the SIPC can possibly handle. It was established to cover securities that were in the custody of the broker or that were on the 

broker’s books. Asking the SIPC to cover all fraud-related losses 

could threaten the solvency of the SIPC. That should not be done 

retroactively. 

At this point I will stop, and I am happy to answer further questions. 

[The prepared statement of Professor Coffee can be found on 

page 64 of the appendix.] 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Coffee. 

Next, we have Mr. Ira Hammerman, senior managing director 

and general counsel of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association. Mr. Hammerman. 

STATEMENT OF IRA HAMMERMAN, SENIOR MANAGING DIRECTOR AND GENERAL COUNSEL, SECURITIES INDUSTRY AND 

FINANCIAL MARKETS ASSOCIATION (SIFMA) 

Mr. HAMMERMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member 

Garrett, and members of the subcommittee. I am pleased to testify 

on behalf of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association on this important subject. My testimony focuses on SIFMA’s 

preliminary recommendations regarding revisions to SIPA in light 

of issues emerging from recent liquidations and the effect of the 

Dodd-Frank Act. 

SIPA’s fundamental purpose is to promote investor confidence in 

the capital markets by protecting customers against the loss of 

cash or securities in the failure of the broker holding such property. 

14 

It is not intended to protect investors against losses on their investments, only against losses of their investments. When a broker 

fails, SIPA provides for the distribution of the customer property 

pro rata to all customers; and to the extent there are shortfalls, 

$500,000 from SIPC is available to restore to each customer’s missing cash or securities. Investors who lose money because of a decline in the value of the securities purchased for their accounts, 

however, are not protected by SIPA against such losses, whether 

the decline is due to market forces or even due to fraud. 

In this regard, SIFMA opposes the Culberson amendment, as it 

would extend SIPC’s protection to cover fraud by the issue of securities which are neither lost nor stolen but in fact are in the customer’s possession. 

SIPA’s customer protection framework has been challenged like 

never before by two recent events. The Madoff Ponzi scheme, a 

massive long-term fraud that inflicted significant harm on many 

investors, including individuals, families, charitable, and educational institutions highlighted questions about the scope of customer protection under SIPA, especially as it applies to the calculation of a customer’s net equity in a Ponzi scheme and the application of SIPC’s protection of indirect investors. The insolvency of 

Lehman Brothers exposed inconsistencies between SIPA and the 

SEC’s customer protection rule. 

When a failed broker was operated as a Ponzi scheme, we believe 

that customer property should be distributed to the victims based 

on the net amounts entrusted to the failed broker, reduced by any 

distributions received, without regard to fictitious profits shown on 

fraudulent account statements. The property held by a Ponzi 

scheme and available for distribution to the investors is simply the 

pooled property of all the victims, and distributions based on anything other than their net investment would be fundamentally unfair. 

Indirect investors who do not have accounts with the failed 

broker but invested in another entity like a hedge fund that had 

an account are not eligible for SIPC’s protection. SIPC generally 

should not provide greater protection to institutions than to individuals. 

And, accordingly, SIFMA opposes an increase in the protection 

provided to customers that are hedge funds, corporations, or partnerships. This principle, however, may not apply to trusts or employee benefit plans, which represent the interests of their beneficiaries in a more straightforward way. Before expanding SIPC 

protection to these indirect investors, however, Congress should 

consider the additional cost. 

SIPA and the SEC’s customer protection rules should work together. This rule requires each broker to maintain possession of its 

customers’ fully paid and excess margin securities and deposit into 

a reserve account in an amount generally equal to its net monetary 

obligations to customers. In a SIPA liquidation, the customers’ securities are available for distribution to customers. If SIPA and the 

customer protection rule are harmonized, a failed broker that complied with the rules should have sufficient customer property to 

satisfy the net equity claims of all customers. Unfortunately, the 

two are not fully harmonized today. 

15 

Additionally, as the SEC begins to develop the requirements applicable to securities-based swap dealers, the divergences between 

the SEC’s customer protection requirements and SIPA will only increase. Dodd-Frank amended the liquidation provisions of the 

Bankruptcy Code to treat accounts holding securities-based swaps 

as securities accounts, but no similar amendment was made to 

SIPA, leaving unclear the treatment in a SIPA liquidation of customer security based swaps and related margin. 

Lastly, SIPA provides for the distribution of a single pool of property pro rata among all customers, which may unfairly impose 

risks of the more complex types of accounts like portfolio margin 

accounts on the customers who have simpler accounts like cash accounts. To protect customers with the simpler accounts, customers 

should be divided into separate account classes. The rules tailored 

to create a separate pool of customer property for each account 

class and SIPA and the Bankruptcy Code should provide for the 

distribution of each such separate pool to the customers in their related account class. The best way to harmonize the customer protection rules with the liquidation process and to tailor both to separate account classes is for Congress to authorize the SEC to make 

appropriate rules under SIPA, the Bankruptcy Code, and the Exchange Act. We also believe that the basis on which members contribute to SIPC’s fund may be outdated and should be reviewed in 

light of the manner in which members currently operate. 

In conclusion, SIFMA is strongly committed to working constructively with the SIPC Task Force and this subcommittee to recommend ways to better protect investors and thereby increase investor confidence in the financial markets. 

I would be pleased to answer any questions you may have. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Hammerman can be found on 

page 78 of the appendix.] 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Hammerman. 

Finally, we have Mr. Steven Caruso, partner in Maddox, Hargett 

& Caruso. Mr. Caruso. 

STATEMENT OF STEVEN B. CARUSO, PARTNER, MADDOX, 

HARGETT, & CARUSO, P.C. 

Mr. CARUSO. Thank you, Chairman Kanjorski, Ranking Member 

Garrett, and members of the subcommittee. 

My name is Steven Caruso, and I am an attorney from New York 

City with the law firm of Maddox, Hargett & Caruso. Our law firm 

represents investors. That is what we do. I am also now a member 

of the SIPC Modernization Task Force, and I view my role on that 

Task Force as looking forward: What can we do to make sure that 

what we have experienced in the past few years does not happen 

again? 

There is a lot of blame to go around. We can blame the SEC. We 

can blame FINRA. We heard earlier somebody blaming the prior 

Administration. That doesn’t answer the question. 

There are in my mind two questions when we leave here today: 

One, what do we do to keep anything tragic from happening as we 

move forward? And, two, what do we do to remedy what has happened to investors in Madoff, in Stanford, and in a host of other 

16 

situations where investors have been screwed? Plain and simple. 

That, in my view, is what this committee needs to consider going 

forward. 

We have heard from other colleagues on this panel about increasing SIPC coverage. That has to be done. We have heard about increasing the target level. That must be done. 

Just think over the past few years what we have all seen. Lehman Brothers is gone. Bear Stearns is gone. Who is next? And 

what happens if somebody needs to step up to cover the exposure 

associated with those firms? 

You need to eliminate the distinction between cash and securities. Every investor for covered securities should get, plain and 

simple, at least $1 million of coverage. That is the only fair and decent thing to do. 

There are other suggestions and other questions that I have put 

in my materials, but, make no mistake about it, Madoff will happen again. There are people out there who are greedy. Stanford 

will happen again. Lehman Brothers. It is going to happen again. 

So what do we do? We build in protections going forward. But it 

begs the question, what do we do about all these people who have 

been hurt in the past? 

Now, I am not aware of any legislation having been introduced 

by the Congress that would provide any financial restitution to 

these people. And it is very convenient to make SIPC the whipping 

boy for what has happened. But if we want to take care of those 

people, then I today call on Congress to introduce legislation in addition to the tax relief that would provide a means of restitution 

away from the SIPC process. That is the most equitable and the 

fairest thing to do. 

I thank you for inviting me today, and I would be pleased to answer any questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Caruso can be found on page 59 

of the appendix.] 

Mr. ACKERMAN. I thank you very much, Mr. Caruso. 

I thank the entire panel for your testimony. I think we all have 

some questions, and I will begin with my own. We will take 5 minutes each, and we will go as many rounds as anybody would like. 

I will go backwards and start with the statement that Mr. Caruso just made and that is seeing the mission as looking forward. 

When I look forward, I see before me some of the wounded warriors 

of the past, the victims, at least a thousand of whom were traumatized by Bernard Madoff and are now being terrorized by the trustee. That is what I see looking forward for some people. And I believe it was Professor Coffee who said, recalling the Hippocratic 

Oath of ‘‘first do no harm,’’ to look at the situation that we are 

doing tremendous harm with the issue of the claw-back to many, 

many people. 

I think one of the terrible things that we have done here is, because of the way the zero sum game equation works, we have created classes of victims—I don’t understand really, and I know the 

math—net winners and net losers. 

Except for the few who have yet to be identified, should there be 

those who are complicit with Madoff, everybody else is a victim. 

People who might have taken more money out of money that they 

17 

think is theirs have been victimized. People who put their money 

in a bank—and I know that is a different system when you are 

talking about the FDIC and not SIPC—who are using their own 

money, and suddenly somebody says that wasn’t really your money 

because you weren’t entitled to that 7 percent interest or whatever 

it was, they are victims. If you are telling people their whole lifestyle, not just in the future but in the past, has to be reversed, that 

they can no longer live in their house or maintain their business 

or drive in their car or continue to pay for their children or grandchildren’s education, they are victims. That is traumatic. 

And to create classes of people by saying some are rich, wealthy 

entities and some are not, a guy dies and the insurance company 

isn’t doing so well so you say to the widow, ‘‘I know you have a policy. But you are okay. I will give it to someone else.’’ If you think 

the money is yours and you paid for the premium—and I don’t 

know what kind of premium, by the way—you think you get 

$500,000 worth of insurance for $150 a year, and the systems pretends that people have real insurance and the SEC agrees that is 

real insurance after they are supposed to be supervising the agency. And the U.S. Congress, which is complicit in this thing as well, 

because we are supposed to be overseeing—and everybody is just 

pretending. At least in the commercial, the doctor says, ‘‘I’m not a 

real doctor. I’m just playing one on TV.’’ This isn’t real insurance. 

We are just playing make-believe to make you feel better. 

My question is about claw-back. If we are going to move forward, 

how do you move backwards? That is question number one, clawback. Anybody? Everybody? 

Mr. CARUSO. I will offer a suggestion. 

I think anytime you get into the issue of claw-backs, you not only 

implicate SIPC and SIPA but you also do the Bankruptcy Code. Is 

it fair to go back to somebody who took out money to pay taxes? 

Is it fair to go after somebody who may have taken money to pay 

for a grandchild’s education? I don’t think anybody in this room 

would say it is necessarily fair. And I think Congress has the 

power to step up and say that is not fair. That is simply not fair. 

Whether you should be able to go back a year or 2 years—clearly, 

for insiders, it would be different. But for other people to go back 

5, 6, 7 years, in my personal opinion, I find that to be stretching 

the limit. But I don’t think SIPC or the Task Force has the power 

to change that. I think it rests with the Congress. And maybe I am 

wrong on that, but if— 

Mr. ACKERMAN. And what would you suggest should be the policy? Do we have a responsibility to those people? 

Mr. CARUSO. I think you clearly have a responsibility to those 

people. And I heard earlier a suggestion about a distinction about 

how much of a claw-back would you go after. Would there be a 

threshold limit? Clearly, if there is somebody like a feeder fund 

who benefited by millions or billions of dollars, there should be no 

limitation on the ability to get the money back. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Isn’t this a moral question and not a means-tested thing? I am sure, without knowing anything—maybe I shouldn’t 

be so sure. But I would be willing to bet that there are people who 

took nothing out of their accounts who are much wealthier, much 

wealthier than some people who took 150 percent out of their acVerDate Nov 24 2008 16:03 Jan 11, 2011 Jkt 062683 PO 00000 Frm 00023 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 K:\DOCS\62683.TXT TERRIE
18 

count because they had to live on it. Do we means test this thing, 

or do we make a policy decision and try to do what is right? This 

is a real Solomonic question that is before us, and I think we need 

some policy guidance. 

You all are looking at this thing prospectively, how to protect 

people in the future, but when you come up with a cure for a disease, it is our obligation not only to inoculate people who have not 

yet gotten the disease but to treat the people who are suffering 

from it at the same time. How do we deal with these people? 

Mr. COFFEE. May I try to address that, Congressman? 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Professor Coffee, please, and then I am going to 

yield to my colleague, Mr. Garrett, because my time is up. 

Mr. COFFEE. I would just suggest to you when we look at all of 

the participants who fall into this heading of net winners, who took 

more cash out than they put cash in, there is a continuum. There 

may be people that Congress wants to protect. You could protect 

them with a de minimus test, saying only that fictitious profits 

over dollar sign ‘‘X’’ could be recovered. You could protect them 

with what I will call an imputed interest test. Because if you put 

this money in 10 years ago, the fact that you made 10 percent a 

year would entitle you to take out 100 percent or more above the 

money you put in. 

But you do not need to protect the feeder funds and the other 

people who look like they behaved irresponsibly and probably corruptly. Those names are well known to the financial press. Whether it is Fairfield Greenwich, Mr. Merkin, Stanley Chais, Jeffrey 

Picker Worth, those people are cheering you on right now. Because 

if you move the standard up, anytime you make the recovery harder for the trustee, you will reduce the settlement value of the trustee’s claims against them, and the trustee can get billions of dollars 

back from them for the net losers. 

I don’t think Congress should make it harder to recover by the 

trustee on behalf of the net losers from the people whom I think 

were very culpable, and there were a number of those people. Thus, 

if you would protect the people you want to protect by instead 

using a de minimus test or an imputed interest test, I think you 

will achieve most of your objectives without protecting those people 

who are culpable. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. I will respond in a different round or probe that 

a little bit in a different round. 

Mr. Garrett. 

Mr. GARRETT. Thanks. 

So, going forward, does anyone have a recommendation with regard to the SIPC logo? Some people have suggested that we put a 

little asterisk by it saying that—warning you that the statements 

that you are receiving may be interpreted in a different way and 

you may be subject to claw-backs in the future or other interpretations. 

I say that facetiously, but maybe not. Because a couple of your 

comments—everyone’s comments seemed to imply that the investor 

had a misinterpretation of exactly what they were getting if they 

understood that SIPC was there and what they were relying on. 

But some of you have suggested, Mr. Hammerman, if I was following, I think you said different pools or classifications or what 

19 

have you. Mr. Coffee, you are a professor. You were talking about 

it not in those terms but in a similar approach getting to the end 

place. 

I—as the typical little investor going into my local shop to make 

my investment and seeing the SIPC logo there probably is not 

going to know right away, Mr. Hammerman, do I fall in pool number A, B, C, or is there no water in my pool at the end of the day 

because I miscalculated? 

Someone over there, Mr. Coffee or Mr. Johnson, somebody made 

the comment—no, it was Mr. Borg, about not reading all of the disclaimers and everything you get in the mail, just like none of us 

read the disclaimers that we get from the credit card companies 

and all of those things. So how do we address that? Are we going 

to create a whole bunch of different classifications? I will start with 

Mr. Hammerman there. And then for me, the little guy who just 

doesn’t follow this to begin with? 

Mr. HAMMERMAN. I think the heart of your question is investor 

education and informing the public to a better extent than we have 

been doing historically as to what SIPC is all about. 

Again, when I talk about SIPC, it is the SIPC of the last 40 

years. There is a lot of discussion about where this should go in 

the future. But certainly, from the industry standpoint, we would 

be willing to work with all experts—SIPC, NSA, the SEC, FINRA, 

consumer groups, whomever the right people in the room are—if 

there is a way to do a better job of investor education so that investors understand. And it is not just a one-time thing, so it is not just 

a disclosure at the opening of the account. As Mr. Borg said, this 

needs to be ingrained over time. 

Mr. GARRETT. I don’t know about you. I get my statements regularly, and I get them all the time. And I look at the number, and, 

oh, I am doing pretty good. Right now, I am doing pretty poorly. 

I am not reading through the rest of all the fine print. Maybe I am 

abnormal in that regard. Maybe other people read through all of 

that stuff. 

So if we do try to reeducate folks and tell them that, in the future—and I think I agree on this—in the future, the American public should not rely upon the Federal Government to be protecting 

them to the extent that they thought the Federal Government was 

protecting them in the past, because we have shown that the Federal Government in these areas, the various agencies can’t do it. 

So I think that is one learning lesson that the American people 

need. 

Mr. COFFEE. That is a very good question. I think your question 

is a profound one. Because when you give an investor an education 

and you show that there are some arbitrary lines, it really becomes 

incumbent upon Congress to change those lines and not insist upon 

arbitrary distinctions. 

Mr. Borg, I, and others have told you that the definition of ‘‘customer’’ is too limited. Rather than tell all investors that the definition of customer is limited and arbitrary, it is better to change the 

definition of customer so it makes a little bit more sense and it includes the smaller person who thought he had coverage but doesn’t. 

Mr. GARRETT. I appreciate that, and maybe I could do a round— 

but I want to get to another question for Mr. Johnson. 

20 

In your statement, you claim that in the past, the courts and 

SIPC have rejected using a customer’s last statement as a guide for 

the SIPC coverage in cases where fictitious profits are involved. 

But in the leading case in the Second Circuit, New Times One, in 

fact, the customer’s final statement was used, I understand, in calculating their SIPC reimbursement. 

Comments? 

Mr. JOHNSON. We have a number of cases and also the bankruptcy courts have always looked at whether or not there was reason to believe that last statement that you had received actually 

was the information that was accurate. 

One of the things that we have been doing is trying to figure out 

how do we make sure that we can utilize these statements in a 

way that we are protecting all the investors. What the primary concern is regarding the final statement is making sure that we don’t 

create an environment where the wrongdoer actually has an opportunity to create the forum for who would be successful and who 

would not be successful. The reason that is important is because 

you could have a situation—let’s take the Madoff case—where you 

have someone who tells you something that from the very beginning was not true, but the final statement they tell you is, guess 

what, you have nothing to worry about, because whatever I got on 

that final statement is what you are going to be protected from. 

That would be the only true statement that would come out of 

their mouths, and what we would do is be creating an environment 

where the wrongdoer now gets an opportunity to set the tone for 

how the government then will be responsible for responding. 

So the primary issue we are concerned with is making sure that 

whatever methods we use are going to ensure that we are not going 

to allow the wrongdoer to actually set the parameters of how we 

would go about final decisions and putting Congress in the position 

where they end up doing something that may be unintended as 

well. 

Mr. GARRETT. You are sort of going down a slightly different road 

on that, but I understand what you are saying. But there is case 

law now that says the final statement can be used by you for reimbursement purposes. So going forward on that case law is contrary 

to the position of SIPC then. 

Mr. JOHNSON. There is case law that has said that. There are 

also bankruptcy rulings that have mentioned the fact that you can 

look at things from a different standpoint as it relates to not only 

whether or not you have this fictitious statement but also whether 

or not you are a net winner or a net loser. And part of that calculation takes into consideration whether or not this fictitious statement or the statement you have is one that is valid. 

Now, whether or not it should be taken into consideration, it 

should be. But at the end of the process, there has to be some analysis to determine whether or not that actual statement is what you 

should end up using as the basis of how you would go about making a payment on a claim. 

Mr. GARRETT. But you are going to continue to reject the use of 

that as a guide for your coverage in cases? 

Mr. JOHNSON. What we will do is we will continue to look at the 

statements that come in and then we will continue to look at the 

21 

global aspect of what happened in a particular set of circumstances. And then, if there is a conflict, we will take it to the 

court and allow a third party to help us to make a decision whether 

or not we should move forward. 

All we are trying to do is hopefully vigorously pursue the law as 

we understand it and interpret it. And we understand there can be 

reasonable minds that may differ on how you may interpret the 

law, but once we are told from a third party or anyplace else that 

we should be operating differently, then we intend to vigorously 

move forward in that vein as well. 

Mr. GARRETT. Mr. Caruso, I don’t want to throw you on the spot 

on that one. Any response to that, considering where you come 

from? 

If not, that is fine. 

Mr. CARUSO. Clearly, there are going to be different opinions 

from different circuits from different courts. Part of the confusion 

that exists is that there is no well-defined standard that is universal throughout the country. And the only way that I know of 

that finally could be resolved would be through the Congress of the 

United States. Because you are going to have different court opinions on every issue. 

Mr. JOHNSON. I think one other point that is worth mentioning 

regarding the Second Circuit case is it also points out the fact that 

where the decision regarding what those amounts are on the statement are arbitrary—and in this case we are looking at a situation 

where the numbers, for example, in the Madoff statements, were 

arbitrary—then that would be taken into consideration in terms of 

coming to a final analysis as well. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Thank you. 

Next, my co-collaborator and cosponsor of the Ponzi Scheme Investment Action Act, Mr. King. 

Mr. KING. Thank you, Mr. Ackerman. 

Listening to this, I don’t think we are getting the full import or 

impact of the reality that, while SIPC was set up to protect investors, in too many cases right now the trustee is acting as a prosecutor of victims. We can try to explain it anyway we want, but the 

fact is that these people were victims and they are now being subjected to the same type of treatment that defendants are put 

through in massive criminal conspiracies. Yet there is no evidence 

that any of these people are co-conspirators. They are victims. 

I look at the SIPC Web site and it says, although not every investor is protected by SIPC, no fewer than 99 percent of persons 

who are eligible get their investments back from SIPC. 

So, clearly what is being done in reality is different from what 

people had every reason to expect. They relied on the statements 

they received from Madoff. They relied on statements from SIPC 

that 99 percent of investors would be protected. Yet, in addition to 

all the money they have lost because of Madoff, they are now running up incredible legal fees, they are being required to produce 

documents going back 25 and 30 years, and it is being done in I 

believe a very arbitrary and high-handed way and a very heavyhanded way, which is just perpetuating the terrible injustice that 

was inflicted upon them in the first place. 

22 

Now, as far as going forward with SIPC, if I could just be clear 

in my mind, how was the trustee, how was Picard appointed? 

Mr. JOHNSON. He is really appointed by the bankruptcy court. 

They have an opportunity to review who the potential trustees may 

be. There will be recommendations that will be made. They will 

check to see if there are any conflicts of interest. And then they 

will go forward and go through that selection process. 

Mr. Picard is obviously someone who has been involved in this 

industry for a long time. 

Mr. KING. Let me stop you, because time is running out. 

Did SIPC make any recommendation on who the trustee would 

be? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes, we do make a recommendation regarding who 

we think would be a good trustee. 

Mr. KING. Who did you recommend? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Who did we recommend? 

Mr. KING. Yes. 

Mr. JOHNSON. I believe we recommended Mr. Picard. 

Mr. KING. Mr. Picard. So, in effect, we have the court selecting 

a trustee that you recommended, and the argument can be made 

that he is now putting a tremendous effort in to protecting SIPC’s 

funds, that, rather than protecting investors, he is actually working 

to protect SIPC, and to me there is almost an inherent conflict of 

interest in that. 

I know the court made the final decision, but the recommendation was made by SIPC. And it seems to me if we are going forward 

with recommendations in the future, maybe trying to correct the 

injustice of the present, we would find a way to have a much more 

independent person appointed as trustee in which SIPC would 

have no input whatsoever. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Let me make one thing clear. I don’t think that 

we need a trustee to protect SIPC funds under any circumstances, 

because these funds, from my standpoint, don’t belong to any of us. 

These are funds that should be utilized in order to protect the customers. 

What we are trying to do is make sure that whatever the role 

of the trustee is going to be utilizing is going to be in compliance 

with the law. Now, we do have a certain responsibility as we manage this fund, but we are not in the business of trying to figure out 

how to get as few people helped as possible. But we are in the business of making sure whatever policies and procedures we use can 

be protected under the law. 

Mr. KING. But to me, looking at the record, what the trustee is 

doing is not trying to protect as many people as possible, but he 

is using—apart from the fact he has already gotten, I believe, $36 

million in fees authorized to himself, I just think—I have seen runaway prosecutors, special prosecutors, and to me what I am seeing 

in this is a runaway trustee who is putting innocent, wounded people through increased suffering. 

I know even as—Professor Coffee made the statement. He said, 

people we might think are innocent. Don’t we have to assume they 

are innocent? Is there any reason to think that any of the people 

in this room who lost millions of dollars and are now being put on 

the rack, is there any reason to assume they are not innocent? 

23 

There is almost an inference here that the trustee is being hired 

because—or has been appointed or his job is to find out those who 

may have been involved and we think others are involved, when 

there is no evidence that they were. And to me the presumption 

should be that these people are innocent, how do we help them, not 

put them through the incredible ravages and suffering they are 

going through right now. 

There is something wrong about the system. I think somehow we 

are standing back at 30,000 feet and we are saying, okay, we 

dropped the bomb and there may be collateral damage, but we are 

not really—that is what happens in war. The fact is there is a lot 

of collateral damage right now and it is from people who are already damaged and are now being collaterally damaged again. And 

I don’t know if we are really addressing that, the inequity, the injustice, the horror of that. 

Mr. JOHNSON. I think, Congressman King, your point is well 

taken, and one of the things that I have tried to do as chairman 

is to make sure that we start out with the proper tone as to how 

we are going to go forward dealing with any of the individuals who 

have been victimized. 

I think the role of the trustee is one that is difficult and complex 

in that when you begin to start to go through the process it is unclear who may be complicit, who may have engaged in wrongdoing 

and who has not. But the one thing we have made clear is that we 

wanted to make sure that everyone had an opportunity, even if you 

‘‘received a service of a document,’’ that you had an opportunity to 

come in and speak with the trustee. Because our goal is to make 

sure that we are going after the correct individuals. 

We are not trying to simply just go after anybody for the sake 

of going after anybody. We understand that this is a very sensitive 

issue, and we sympathize with some of the horrors that individuals 

have gone through. And we want to make sure that at the end of 

the day, that process is taking place in a way in which we will all 

be comfortable. 

That is basically the commitment that I would like to continue 

to make here today. 

Mr. KING. If Mr. Ackerman will just give me time for one more 

question, one more statement. If that is the case, then I think 

someone should tell Mr. Picard. Because I have spoken to many of 

these people, and they described to me what they are going 

through. They are not being treated as citizens. They are being 

treated as defendants. They are being treated as criminals. And 

there is a high-handed, arrogant attitude by the trustee towards 

these people. 

And I think something has to be done, that the message should 

come from you or the court or someone, but to tell him to knock 

it off and treat them like victims, not as criminals. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Your point is noted, Congressman King. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. And I will also note for the record that there are 

compassionate conservatives. 

Mr. KING. I take exception to that. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. You are exceptional. 

Several things. These letters that are going out aren’t, hey, I am 

from the government. I am here, and I want to help you. These letVerDate Nov 24 2008 16:03 Jan 11, 2011 Jkt 062683 PO 00000 Frm 00029 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 K:\DOCS\62683.TXT TERRIE
24 

ters set the tone of a very adversarial relationship, and it is scaring 

a lot of people. It is now us against you or you against us. And 

these are people, not if they might have been victimized, they are 

victims. 

What kind of attitude is it, they might have been victimized? Is 

there any question that they have been victimized? People who 

have directed their entire lives and the future of their families 

after working hard over their lives and doing the right things wind 

up with nothing in an account and being told they are accomplices 

to spending stolen money? That is pretty adversarial. And you have 

to give it back, even if you don’t have it, and if you have a problem 

with that, come and talk to me. 

I understand your argument, Chairman Johnson, that you don’t 

want to put the crooks in charge of setting the dialogue by having 

the Ponzi scheme operator send you a statement. But just because 

the guy lied and put that as the bottom line on the statement, you 

believed it, and therefore you are guilty of something and therefore 

the crooks are in charge of the agenda and it is your fault for believing the bottom line—let me tell you something. Your government, my government, our government, the Internal Revenue Service was very pleased, was happy, was delighted to rely on the bottom line in collecting taxes and going after them if people didn’t 

pay based on that bottom line. We empowered that bottom line as 

being gospel and telling people they had to pay based on that bottom line because that bottom line was the bottom line. And why 

didn’t the government investigate? Why didn’t the government do 

it? 

This whole thing is bizarre. It is Kafkaesque. 

‘‘First do no harm’’ should be the rule. It was cited here, and 

properly so. But instead of the Hippocratic Oath, we are taking the 

hypocritic oath. We are saying ‘‘first do no harm’’ and then going 

after these people. The whole notion is weird. 

My colleague, Mr. Garrett, talked about the SIPC logo. This is 

the SIPC logo. People look in shorthand, they look for symbols, 

they look for things, and this is the way we conduct our lives, fortunately or not. And we all get those little statements from our financial institutions 15 times a week with all that fine print, and it is 

folded in 16 pieces, and we don’t read it, and we throw it out. And 

sometimes we say, who made these people send this out? And then 

I scratch my head and say, oh, my God, what have we done? 

But we don’t read those things. We do the shorthand. People go 

into the bank. It says, ‘‘protected by the FDIC,’’ and people believe 

they know what that means. It is the government standing behind 

and they have insurance up to a certain amount, that we just increased in this last Congress, and they know they got insurance 

and the government is standing behind it. 

Then they go to their broker, and they see this, and it looks kind 

of like the same kind of deal. And you go to your guy to make an 

investment, and he hands you his business card—and we just 

pulled two out of the fishbowl that we got. And on it, it says he 

is a member of the NASD and he is a member of SIPC. Everybody’s 

business card, they are proud, they are a member of SIPC. That 

is code for ‘‘you are protected’’ and Uncle Sam and the government 

are standing behind you. 

25 

You go into the guy’s shop and you go to your broker-dealer and 

this is on the door. And if you looked them up, like I used to do 

not too many years ago and those of us who are technologically 

challenged, and you go to the Yellow Pages and his ad has this in 

it, his stationary has this on it, his radio ad tells you, his TV ad 

tells you. You go to the Internet and he is advertising he is a member of SIPC. 

And you see what it says right under the logo: Securities Investor—that is me—Protection—that is what I need—Corporation— 

that is what I have. And instead of a dot on the I, guess what we 

have? We have the American eagle, just like on my stationary and 

on the shield of the President of the United States and the Supreme Court. 

That is shorthand for ‘‘your government is standing behind this.’’ 

And we have allowed this to happen. It is, ‘‘I am not a real doctor, 

but I am playing one to fool you,’’ and your government is accepting 

it, and you have insurance for $500,000, except you don’t have anything. 

We have a moral responsibility to these people, do we not, or am 

I missing something? Question mark? 

Mr. JOHNSON. I think we do have a responsibility to these people, 

and I think when we look at things, we have a responsibility to 

every victim who was part of a scheme. And one of the things that 

we have to figure out is how we balance and whether we do it the 

right way or do it the wrong way, how do we ensure that we are 

not simply going to benefit those who by the luck of time got out 

at the right time, as opposed to those individuals who may not 

have been as fortunate. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. If you got a transfusion first, we should take out 

the blood to give it to somebody who is a pint short? 

Mr. JOHNSON. I wouldn’t take out the blood, Congressman, in 

order to have somebody take their lives away, but we do give blood 

to others from time to time who are in need. And one of the things 

that we are simply trying— 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Shouldn’t that be a collective decision that we do 

as a society and not have a trustee decide who to go after and take 

their blood back? 

Mr. JOHNSON. I think maybe the role that Congress will end up 

taking is to help us to get more specific guidelines as to how that 

needs to take place, and I think we will be more than happy to vigorously follow that rule until whatever way Congress decides to 

move forward. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Yes, but we are looking to you. This is not King 

Solomon’s court, and none of us pretend to be. And it is an awesome responsibility. And you by virtue of the fact of the role that 

you have looking forward, which I agree is your role, and sometimes we have to see how to fix the problem looking forward, what 

we do about the collateral damage, as Pete King said that we have 

left behind, the carnage here. We shouldn’t be trampling on the 

bodies of those who are injured in order to help those in the future. 

We have to try to help everybody. And you don’t do that by further 

wounding those people who are suffering. 

It is not taking away. We are where we are. It is a static situation right now. Do you go in and further probe the wounds of those 

26 

people who may or may not have the wherewithal to do anything 

to give to people who are ‘‘net losers,’’ who may be richer than the 

net winners? I don’t know how you figure this thing out. 

We have some legislation on the people who went through 

broker-dealers and third parties and all that to give them up to 

$100,000 insurance each. As a society, maybe we who are complicit 

in it, which is society and us and you and everybody else for letting 

this happen, to say, okay, this is the help we have to give people. 

We all bore the responsibility, and we have to pay for it. 

It is not just voter education. We all know you can’t go over the 

speed limit, but we still put cops out there. People rely on the cops 

to enforce the law, and our cops haven’t done that. Everybody 

thought they were doing what they were supposed to be doing and 

then find out their whole world is topsy-turvy. 

My time is up. 

Mr. GARRETT. Thank you. 

I wasn’t sure where you were going with this King Solomon reference, but in the case of King Solomon, of course, we all know the 

story from the Old Testament. At the end of the day, of course, he 

didn’t slice the baby in half and the baby survived. I thought he 

was going to go and suggest that in this case we are slicing the 

baby in half and making that wrong decision, and then the penalty 

is on both the mother and the dead child. 

So just to follow along then also where Peter—the gentleman 

from New York, excuse me, was saying with regards to the trustee, 

just two quick questions there. 

One question we get oftentimes is, do you know what the trustee 

has billed SIPC so far and where do those funds come from actually? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes. I think he has billed the court about $39 million. 

Mr. GARRETT. $39 million. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Did he get paid on time? 

Mr. GARRETT. The question from almost the peanut gallery, from 

my colleague here, is does he get paid on time and where do those 

funds come from? 

Mr. JOHNSON. They come from fees that are paid by SIPC members. 

Mr. GARRETT. So, in essence, it comes from the same pot of 

money. 

The question was asked by the gentleman from New York with 

regard to the appointment of the trustee, and I understand your 

answer. But over time, not just in this case, is it just the norm with 

regard that SIPC makes a recommendation for a trustee, and is it 

the norm that the judge would approve that? 

Mr. JOHNSON. It is the norm for SIPC to make the recommendation, and it is simply up to the judge. And I can’t say that I know 

of other circumstances where the judge may not have accepted that 

recommendation, but at the end of the day, it is completely in the 

judge’s discretion. 

Mr. GARRETT. Do we know, in other cases, does the investor class 

or anyone else make recommendations to the court as to who they 

would— 

27 

Mr. JOHNSON. We make the designation basically by statute. So 

if the statute was different, then it would allow others to be able 

to make the call. But we are designated by statute to do so, so that 

is why we really don’t have any other third parties that are involved. 

Mr. CARUSO. I don’t believe investors would have the right to 

propose their own trustee, at least initially. 

Mr. GARRETT. Just a quick question— 

Mr. COFFEE. Your statement is correct. It is SIPC who makes the 

recommendation. The court simply decides if the proposed trustee 

is qualified. So there is a strong presumption in favor of the SIPC 

nominee. 

Mr. GARRETT. Does anybody here on the panel suggest that is 

good, bad, or should be changed? 

Mr. COFFEE. I think SIPC is very much overseen by the SEC in 

this regard, and it is the SEC who has asked SIPC to generate a 

list of potential trustees in advance. So I think this is a combination of the SEC and SIPC that has developed this approach of developing a list of potential trustees in advance. 

Mr. GARRETT. Okay. And does anybody suggest that is not the 

appropriate—some of you said looking forward, so, looking forward, 

is this something we should be looking at? 

Mr. JOHNSON. In terms of that whole process, that is on the table 

in terms of what we are looking at during the Task Force. The way 

we are looking at the Task Force is we want to take a look at everything that we are doing from top to bottom. We just went and 

had a complete full view of the operations of the staff, which was 

something that I wanted to have an opportunity to take a look at. 

So we have everything on the table in terms of how we think we 

can best protect investors and customers when this is all said and 

done. 

Mr. GARRETT. Okay, would one of those other things—and anyone can answer this question, and this was in my opening statement—was the question regarding how net equity should be calculated and the question as far as access to the records to the investor class in order to help make those determinations. I understand that—obviously, it will be critically important for the investor class to be able to have those information as well as SIPC to 

have them. But, right now, I guess they are not done. 

I understand the SIPC trustees—SIPC’s formulation could be 

called into question if you were to have access to those records and 

to look at those records and to say in those examples that some of 

you are raising that, yes, some of these transactions over the last— 

how many years—couple of decades were actually legitimate transactions, right? And so when I got my statement I put in a half million on and it said $3 million, maybe $750,000 of them were actually legitimate transactions, right? 

So when you all figure out the net valuation on that, you want 

to know that, right? But if the investor folks don’t have access to 

the information, they are not in a position to argue that. So what 

are we doing with those records? 

Mr. JOHNSON. That point is well noted, and I think from my 

standpoint I don’t really see a reason why they shouldn’t have access to that documentation, and that is one of the issues we will 

28 

look at and make the recommendation potentially with the Task 

Force. 

Mr. GARRETT. But where are we right now on that? 

Mr. JOHNSON. I am sorry? 

Mr. GARRETT. It is in the court right now. Is this something that 

can be changed with regard to what is going on right now? 

I am not talking about Mr. Caruso’s fine comment saying what 

do we do in the future on the next Madoff? We are talking about 

the situation right now I guess for some of the folks behind you. 

Can we say that tomorrow this information is available, or where 

are we? 

Mr. JOHNSON. In terms of where we are right now, I am not sure 

if we have the authorization to make that available. But that is 

something that we can take a look at, and if we have the authorization to do so, we will. 

Mr. GARRETT. So there is a question of whether SIPA itself may 

need to be amended in order for that to occur? 

Mr. JOHNSON. That is clearly the case. 

I make it very clear that is a statute that really hasn’t been reviewed for about 40 years in a serious way, and that is part of the 

reason we are trying to figure out how to get this statute to be 

more flexible to be able to deal with the issues that we are currently dealing with in this type of market, in this type of investment climate, and understanding the type of investors we are dealing with right now. 

Mr. GARRETT. Just so I am clear, that needs to be done, and you 

don’t have the flexibility under the current language? 

Mr. JOHNSON. We are reviewing it, and we will determine whether or not we have the flexibility under the current language. So, 

in the event that we do not, that may be a recommendation that 

we may move forward with. 

Mr. GARRETT. All right, then you just opened up the next question then when you said you are trying to determine this: How long 

does that take in order to determine it? Because I think that is the 

information I would want yesterday. 

Mr. JOHNSON. That is information that we can find out very 

quickly; and as soon as I have that response I can get it back to 

you, Congressman. But I can’t imagine it would take us a long time 

to make that determination. 

Mr. GARRETT. Thanks. 

The gentleman next to you? 

Mr. BORG. I was going to make an analogy to some of the cases 

that are non-SIPC. Most of the cases I prosecute, my office prosecutes, are Ponzi schemes with fictitious securities and whatnot, 

but there is no SIPC coverage or there hasn’t been in the past. I 

would like to see nothing better than everybody get all their money 

back, but I am not so sure how you can do that. 

Mr. GARRETT. Hold that thought. Can you explain how it comes 

about that they are not going through SIPC? 

Mr. BORG. Historically, because the securities are not either held 

by a broker-dealer. For example, private placements is a big area 

for us, the Reg Ds. We have complained about this many, many 

times. 

29 

The sales have that occur through a broker-dealer, it might be 

a private placement where they get an LLC partnership, a limited 

partnership type certificate or something. The certificate is not held 

at the broker-dealer. It is not in inventory. 

They do get account statements, because there is a report, and 

they will actually get, say, that according to your oil and gas well 

or whatever it may have been, you have ‘‘XX’’ dollars. Historically, 

that has not gone through SIPC, and I guess I have had this discussion with SIPC since the mid-1990’s on that, but there was no 

interest from any government body at the time to take that on up. 

This goes back to the microcap area that I testified to in the Senate 

back in 1996. 

As a practical matter, though, the Ponzi schemes that we oversee 

end up having a very limited pool of funds. Although we very rarely see the claw-back issue come up, because, quite honestly, these 

Ponzi schemes usually don’t last 20 years. The ones we see on a 

local level are a lot shorter in duration, and therefore, the time 

value of money is not really that significant. And let’s face it, most 

of these folks don’t want the cheese, they just want out of the trap 

and to get their money back, if they can. Most of the time it is pennies on the dollar. 

I am going to suggest, though, if we are looking at things like 

covering the Stanford matter, I have five cases right now in the 

last year. That is another $7 billion that need to be added to that. 

What is not reported is that Stanford and Madoff, just because 

of sheer size, are not unusual cases. They are unusual because of 

the size. I have one case that had 18,000 victims in it, but the dollar numbers were small because we caught it early. But, that being 

said, there was no coverage there. 

I think that as much as I would like to get everybody coverage, 

if you are going to cover the fictitious securities outside of the 

broker-dealer custody area, you are probably going to look at a several hundred billion dollar fund that needs to be funded, and that 

is going to take time, depending on what you do with the assessment. 

I would love that to happen. I don’t think it is practical, at least 

under the current standards. But I do think—let’s not forget, I 

think, that there are other frauds out there that, if we are going 

to expand coverage, we need to do it for all Americans and all 

frauds, not just a Stanford fraud or a Madoff fraud. I can give you 

a list of 20 that we have prosecuted in the last 12 months that 

range from anywhere from half a million dollars to a couple hundred million dollars. The effect of losing your retirement funds to 

Madoff— 

Mr. ACKERMAN. I think all of the legislation that we have cited 

here that we have proposed is not Madoff-specific, but they apply 

to all Ponzi schemes, some of them within a timeframe. 

Mr. BORG. I think that is something that really does need to be 

looked at, and I compliment you for that. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Mr. King. 

Mr. KING. Thank you, Mr. Ackerman. 

Mr. Johnson, what rate, if any, does SIPC give to the final statement? 

Mr. JOHNSON. I am sorry? 

30 

Mr. KING. I said, what rate, if any, does SIPC give to the final 

statement in Madoff? 

Mr. JOHNSON. The final statement has to be part of the analysis, 

because that is where we begin to determine exactly how we got 

to this point and then we start to look back from there. So in terms 

of the final statement, we have to begin with something, and then 

once we start to go through the analysis regarding how did we get 

to that point, that is when we have to determine whether or not 

it is fictitious. And the bankruptcy courts and SIPC and the trustees have reviewed this issue for a number of years and we have 

found that in instances where it is fictitious, the courts will come 

in and make a decision that is something we have to look through 

and go to find out what the real loss is going to be. 

So we do have to begin with that and then hopefully try to draw 

some type of analogy as to where we are supposed to end up. 

Mr. KING. Does it weigh at all in determining the reasonable expectation of the investor or what the reasonable belief of the investor was? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Oh, sure. No one is saying that we have a situation where you get this statement that someone is complicit and 

therefore should not have had some type of reasonable belief. 

What we are trying to do is to make sure that, even when we 

go through that analysis, we have a bigger picture to understand, 

that although you may have believed this was the case, and in 

most Ponzi schemes you have a lot of individuals who believe that 

something actually belonged to them and the responsibility of the 

third party is to come in and make clear what really belonged to 

somebody else and try to figure out how you balance that equation 

so more people are going to be benefited when it is all said and 

done. That is the same practice that we go through. 

Mr. KING. Moving on, I guess my concern—first, I thank all of 

you for your testimony. Obviously, this is a very complex situation. 

But I am just wondering after all of this, if another Madoff 

scheme occurs 10 years from now, is there any reason to believe 

that investors would receive any more equity than they are right 

now? With all of the recommendations that are coming out here, 

unless we set up a fund of several hundred billion dollars, it would 

appear we could be back in the same place 10 years from now 

where you have innocent people who took the money out, relying 

on a statement which they thought was guaranteed by the government, and they then get clawed back; and then others who left 

their money in, also, they are in a terrible situation, too. 

Is there anything that is coming out of this hearing or any of the 

review that would make the situation any better 10 years from now 

for innocent people in a Madoff-like scheme? 

Mr. JOHNSON. That would be the hope. The idea is when you look 

back to when the first Ponzi scheme came into play, we would have 

hoped we would have never had to see that happen again; and our 

primary goal is hopefully trying to put in place some modernization 

that will make our statute flexible enough to be able to deal with 

those things that we can’t imagine. 

The biggest issue that we have is that the 1970, the current statute we had, could not have anticipated this, and we are hoping we 

are going to put something in place that would deal with this. 

31 

Mr. KING. I guess what I am saying, besides hope, is there any 

reasonable expectation for the hope we would be able to protect a 

person who took his money out, say systematically relying on the 

statements, took the money out over the years and now is suddenly 

confronted with a massive claw-back which is going to destroy that 

person, destroy that family, destroy their business, and also destroy any hope of financial security for their children and grandchildren? 

Do you see anything coming out of the discussion so far that 

would protect those people in the future, in a large-scale scheme 

such as this? 

Mr. BORG. I have listened to Professor Coffee’s idea. I don’t think 

that under the current system, if another Madoff happened in 10 

years, you would be any different. I think where you would be different is if you do set the limitations on the claw-back that Professor Coffee has suggested. 

Because, from my point of view, there is also a limited pool of 

money; and, historically, in the cases that we have—again, the nonSIPC, because that is where most of our experience is—we always 

have, for example, $10 million. That is all I have. That is every 

asset. We have taken the houses and the lands and whatnot, and 

I have $100 million worth of claims. 

The only fair way I have been able to do it, without having any 

SIPC coverage, is to say if you put in $100,000 and you took 

$50,000 out, yes, I know that you were expecting that was interest. 

But I have somebody here who put $100,000 in and never took anything out. Therefore, your loss has to be $50,000 and their loss is 

$100,000. And then when I do the mathematics pro rata, you are 

all going to get the same sort of share of the loss, as opposed to 

trying to make you whole. 

If you have an unlimited fund or a fund of $500 billion or something like that, then, of course, you can do different, if you have 

that expectation and you can cover anybody’s expectation. I don’t 

think it is practical to cover everybody’s expectation for the full 

amount without some limitations, 10 years, 5 percent, 10 percent, 

whatever it is, though I do think 10 percent is high in the current 

economy. I would love to get 10 percent on a CD at a bank, if I 

could. 

But whatever the number is, I think the important thing is that 

we have a finite number to start with, and that is a finite number 

that has to be divided. If I have five people in my family and there 

is a lemon pie, I can cut it into five pieces. But if somebody already 

has a piece, I am not sure they are entitled to a full piece the next 

time around. 

Mr. KING. Let me start with Professor Coffee on that. Have you 

done any of the math if that reasonable expectation was built in 

over the years, how that— 

Mr. COFFEE. Let me take Mr. Borg’s example, and take it one 

step further. If you put in $1 million and you take out $50 million—and there are those cases in Madoff—I do not want to totally 

disarm the trustee. Trustees in bankruptcy for the last 500 years 

have had the power to attack fraudulent conveyances. I think we 

would be sweeping too broadly if we totally disarmed the trustee. 

32 

I understand your concerns. I think the better way to deal with 

the people you are most sympathetic to is to create either a de 

minimus test, saying if it is only $500,000, $700,000, some number 

like that, that you took out, that is immune. Or your personal assets, your home is immune. Or we could say we are going to give 

you a minimum return of 10 percent a year because you have been 

invested in here for 10 years. All of those techniques would reach 

most of the people you are talking about. 

But if we were to disarm the trustee entirely, the next case may 

come along and you are going to be having a congressional hearing 

as to why this trustee couldn’t do anything when there was real 

fraud going on here. So I am saying be careful about how broadly 

you disarm the trustee. 

Mr. KING. I realize that dilemma is there. I am just wondering, 

has anyone done any research on what the impact would be if it 

was 8 percent or 9 percent or 10 percent had been built in as the 

reasonable rate of return over the years, how that would affect 

Madoff investors? 

Mr. COFFEE. Madoff went on for over 20 years, maybe 25 years 

or more. If you used compounded interest, you would be able to get 

up to 3 or 4 times what you invested and be exempt from any kind 

of claw-back. 

Mr. KING. Thank you very much. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Can I come back to the pie? What if you discovered suddenly that you had more pie than you thought? 

Mr. BORG. I can tell you from my personal experience on the occasion where we do have more pie than we thought we make the 

pro rata distributions go up. It is almost like all the victims would 

get—you get a dollar, a dollar, you raise it all up. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Would you continue to try to stomach pump the 

guy who ate the first piece of pie? 

Mr. BORG. If I had enough to go around? I personally wouldn’t. 

I do not like claw-backs. I have very, very rarely ever done a clawback. 

But, again, most of my Ponzi schemes are not 20-year-long Ponzi 

schemes, so the claw-backs haven’t been significant enough to even 

make that determination. But if you have more assets and you can 

cover all folks, then why do the claw-back? 

Mr. ACKERMAN. If you somehow discover that you have more pie, 

I am sure it is not going to be enough to cover everybody’s total 

expectations, and probably not even if you do the imputed interest 

that my colleague, Mr. King, was inquiring about. But would you 

discontinue doing harm to those people who already ate the pie? 

They could have eaten that pie 3 years ago. 

Mr. BORG. That is true. But there are some folks who tried to 

save that pie and put it over in the fridge and didn’t eat it, and 

now they don’t have it at all, so they never got the benefit of the 

first piece of pie in the first place. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Yes, but those people may have six other pies. 

Mr. BORG. Yes, but the problem with that is we don’t get into— 

at least I haven’t, and I am not talking about the Madoff situation 

because I am not involved in the Madoff trustee case. That is why 

I don’t know the details. But in the cases we have where we have 

seen that someone else has a lot of assets, the point is they are still 

33 

entitled to protection under my statute and they are entitled to 

cover that. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Exactly. 

Mr. BORG. If I have excess property, I probably don’t have much 

of a case to worry about, because I have enough money to go 

around. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Not excess, but more than you thought you had. 

Nobody is going to get excess, because there wasn’t enough money 

generated. 

Mr. COFFEE. We do have a $50 billion loss here, and even if there 

is more pie here, it is going to add just a few more pennies, a few 

more dollars to the recovery of the entire class of victims. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. One of the things that I think we would like to 

look to you towards, you are tasked with the responsibility of what 

we do in the future to make this situation better for future investors, and you guys are looking at this in a lot more depth than the 

total Congress or even this committee. We have lots of other legislation and stuff that we do, despite the fact that the victims would 

like to think we are doing this and this exclusively full time. Everybody knows we have a lot of other balls that we are trying to keep 

in the air. So, you guys, this is your job as well. We are not begging 

off at all. 

But it would be useful for us to hear your suggestions for the future to treat people fairly and equitably and justly. Why wouldn’t 

those recommendations that hopefully you will make sooner than 

later be applicable to the people who were already victimized as far 

as how we approach this? If this is the way we should have done 

it because we are going to do this in the future, why can’t we backfill and see if we could be helpful to these people that way? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Really what that boils down to, it would be a legal 

question. If it turns out that, pursuant to the law, that we can look 

back, then that is something we can take into consideration. But 

if the law, for example, sets certain specific guidelines, like, for example, we have been talking about how far back the trustee can 

go, the law actually has a limit as to how far back the trustee can 

go, and that is 6 years. You can’t get beyond that timeframe in 

terms of doing an analysis. 

So what we would be looking to do is really to be in compliance 

with the law. If it turns out that the law allows us to be able to 

look back in some way, then that will have to be taken into consideration as we go forward in making recommendations. But that basically would be what we would use as, hopefully, the parameter 

as to how we would make the decision of what we would do retroactively. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. If you are tasked with the responsibility of looking forward, it doesn’t mean that you can’t look over your shoulder. 

Mr. JOHNSON. I don’t think we can really adequately know what 

to do for it unless we have looked back over our shoulder to do a 

real analysis as to where we came from. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. My question is, if you are making judgments 

based on what you believe is just—I am asking a theoretical question—why should that not be applicable? Why should we not use 

that as a standard? 

34 

Mr. COFFEE. We sympathize. I am not saying we can’t. But this 

is a private insurance system, and if you suddenly decide you want 

to cover losses that the insurance system never reserved for, you 

are going to sink the insurance system. That is the problem of Alan 

Stanford. If you ask broker-dealers to cover fraud-related damages, 

that is the kind of liability that dwarfs what is in the fund. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. I don’t want to go back and beat a dead horse, 

but I know that we all know that this private insurance system 

was inadequately funded. Now, whose fault that is, is a matter of 

speculation on people’s part, and I think there is a big shared responsibility here. 

I would say it is not the fault of the guy who walked into a broker’s office and saw this. It is not his fault or her fault. We have 

allowed that to perpetuate in a myth that these people were adequately protected. 

The hospital hires a guy who is not a real doctor and he operates 

on your kid, God forbid. There is a liability here. This guy who 

hung up this certificate to operate on your finances wasn’t protected with the insurance that you thought he had, and your goal 

is to try to fix that in the future. But the way that you fix it in 

the future I would think would set a moral tone to the responsibility that we have to look at as far as how do we help the people 

who already took a hit, and not only that they already took a hit 

but, with the claw-back thing, are going to continue to be traumatized. 

Before I move on to my colleague, I just want to—and this is not 

your responsibility either, but the government should not be the ultimate beneficiary of the ill-gotten gains of Bernard Madoff. And 

that is our job, to try to figure out how to fix that. Some of us have 

some legislation that is moving forward in the Congress. 

Mr. Garrett? 

Mr. GARRETT. Thanks. 

So, just to wrap up, so the gentleman from New York often holds 

that logo up and the issue of what the expectation was. As I sit 

here listening to that and sit here also thinking about what we 

have done in Congress over the last year-and-a-half and what the 

Fed has done, I think we are probably in even a more difficult position than ever before as far as lowering the level of expectations, 

regardless of what SIPC did or didn’t do in this situation. 

I can make the suggestion, oh, what we really should do is just 

send out a blanket notice to everyone who comes in the dealer’s office and say you are not protected for X, Y, and Z in big bold letters 

or something like that so everyone would know, and you all say 

education or what-have-you. 

We already had a law to that effect on something that I use, and 

that is the money market fund. Every time I call up my money 

market fund, I get an automatic recording at the beginning or the 

end of the phone call that says these are not FDIC-insured so there 

is no protection by the Federal Government. I knew that going in, 

that there was absolutely no guarantee. 

But guess what? At the end of the day, when the Reserve Fund 

had a problem and there was a problem on Wall Street, all of a 

sudden they basically were guaranteed, and they didn’t want all 

the funds to break the dollar at that point. 

35 

We just created something, and I guess the appointment was 

made this past week, of a new CFPA, Consumer Financial Protection Agency. So now the American public really doesn’t have to 

worry about anything, if you listened to the testimony over the last 

several months, because we have an agency out there that will protect us from ourselves, and any investment or any—not securities 

per se under the CFPA, but any financial product that is out there, 

because the CFPA is going to be watching out for us. 

So regardless I guess of what SIPC does in this regard, we know 

that the good faith and credit of the United States Federal Government will be behind any future financial activity that I engage in 

and I should be able to look to the Federal Government. 

I think that is a problem that you will have going forward to be 

able to actually, whatever your recommendations are, to delineate 

exactly what your responsibilities are, whether it is $500,000 or $1 

million, as some people say, or something else. The folks at home 

are going to think, no, it is not. The Fed is going to step in, Congress is going to step in, just like they did in these other situations, 

and it is irrelevant. 

So you have a difficult job ahead of you to try to reeducate and 

convince the public that there are limitations to this. 

One question on that, though—and I know you weren’t around 

back then—but back in 2003—you were around someplace in 2003, 

but you weren’t here—the GAO and Members of Congress warned 

that the size of the fund wasn’t the right size, I guess, and should 

be increased. I guess that was done. 

So if you want to comment on your understanding of what may 

have occurred back then to your best analysis, your best opinion on 

that. But more to the point where you right now, now you have at 

$2.5 billion. Is there statistics or an actuarial analysis to say that 

is the right size? Because I think some other folks here were suggesting that should be a much higher figure. 

Mr. JOHNSON. That is actually, I would say, one of the real conversation points that we have as it relates to the Task Force, how 

do we right-size that number? And a lot of it really boils down to 

what would be the ultimate responsibilities that we would be taking on at SIPC. 

If, for example, Congress were to decide that SIPC should be in 

the business of protecting against fraud, then that number would 

have to be a completely different analysis that we would have to 

go through. It could be a situation why you take the number up 

to $10 billion maybe that we are raising from fees and therefore 

you never tap the Treasury line. That would be an analysis of how 

we could figure out what number we need to be at. 

But part of what we are going through with the Task Force is 

really going through an analysis and hiring those to be part of the 

process to help us figure out how do we right-size what that number is. And what it really boils down to is what are the responsibilities that the Congress wants us to take moving forwards, and that 

would help us be able to get to that point. 

Mr. GARRETT. Of course, the issue of fraud, most people coming 

into the broker don’t differentiate what they are being protected for 

right now. It is just like I don’t differentiate under the FDIC what 

I am being protected for. I am just protected to the limits. 

36 

Which goes to a question, Mr. Borg was saying that you dealt 

with cases outside of SIPC, right? So it seems to me we are talking 

about maybe two different things here when you are talking about 

claw-backs and what have you. In your non-SIPC case, then you 

are just dealing with—what—an estate, right? And you are taking 

this little estate or big estate and saying, how am I going to divvy 

it up and maybe use some of it? If it was long term, present value 

of money, you might have done that. If it is short term, you are 

not going to do that, right? 

Mr. BORG. That is correct, on a cash-in, cash-out basis, plus 

whatever you took out. 

Mr. GARRETT. Exactly. But here we are dealing with that, and 

so you have to make those decisions, and I understand that, and 

with regards to the issue about the statements and everything, and 

you understand that. 

But here you are talking about something else with SIPC, right? 

Because you are dealing with—what—sort of my way of thinking, 

an insurance policy but a separate pot of funds that you have collected over the years from the dealers. 

There that is different in my estimation with regard to how that 

should be treated. Because that is really where the expectation— 

when I come in, I see that thing. I think, if I am smart enough— 

I’ll bet you most people don’t even ask how much I am covered for, 

but if is up to $500,000, then it goes to Mr. Coffee’s comment. If 

I invested $500,000 20 years ago and now it is $50 billion and I 

took out $50 billion, I still have an expectation, just like I have— 

I am sorry I used the word—an insurance policy for $500,000 worth 

of coverage, regardless of whether I took it out or not. That is different in my estimation of what you are doing or you are also doing 

with the estate residual. Is that correct? 

Mr. BORG. Yes, sir, that is absolutely correct. That is why I was 

trying to distinguish the SIPC coverage from the non-SIPC coverage, only from the point of view of anything over that amount we 

still have to do some sort of proration. My point was really that the 

coverage is going to depend on how big a pot you have to deal with. 

Mr. GARRETT. But only for the residual, not for the $500,000. 

Mr. BORG. Exactly. I think we are saying the same thing, but I 

was using that as an example to show what else is out there on 

the net equity type calculations. 

Mr. GARRETT. Right. So when you give the example you did before, if somebody invested a million bucks, so he thinks he has 

$500,000, right, and he took out—what did you say—$50 million 

over the last years, but the statement comes out and still says I 

have $1 million on my statement today, right, that person should 

still have the correct interpretation that he has a half a million dollars worth of coverage or protection and there should be absolutely 

no claw-back for that $500,000, correct? 

Mr. COFFEE. There is never a claw-back for the SPIC funds. The 

claw-back is for the amounts that were earlier distributed that 

were fraudulent conveyances, arguably. 

Mr. GARRETT. Right. That is why I wanted a clarification on Mr. 

Borg’s comment. 

Thank you, and I thank the panel, too. 

37 

Mr. ACKERMAN. I have one question, and then we have Mr. 

Klein. 

Has any thought been given to, as you point out, the private sector? Because this is private-sector insurance, the private sector 

that made so much money over the years on people’s investments, 

huge profits, underpaying insurance to give people—that in effect 

gave people a false sense of confidence, that they stepping up to the 

plate and increasing the size of the pie by putting in whatever by 

whatever formulaic circumstance additional amounts, perhaps 

based on a recalculation of what a reasonable premium should 

have been, because they indeed stand to profit—made a profit and 

stand to profit additionally by restoring investor confidence in the 

market. 

Mr. JOHNSON. I think the role of— 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Or is that too sensitive of an issue for you guys 

to go to? 

Mr. JOHNSON. I think the role—I guess what I was kind of trying 

to mull through in my mind is the role of private insurance. It 

sounds like what we are talking about is to actually act as an additional backstop. Is that where we are going with that, Congressman? 

Mr. ACKERMAN. No. I am saying, hey, boys, let’s chip in and 

make this thing good. 

Mr. JOHNSON. I see what you are saying. What we wind up doing 

really is increasing the assessments. Because increasing the assessments at some point is the only way that we will actually end up 

getting the funding. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. I know. But we have made a decision that the 

assessments should have been a heck of a lot larger to begin with. 

We are going to fix that in the future. 

But has anybody given any thought to saying the guys who are 

going to profit by keeping investors as investors, making good to 

restore confidence and paying what they should have paid in the 

first place into the fund? 

Mr. JOHNSON. That is an area that we can take under consideration. 

In terms of how that role would be going forward, I am unclear 

on how it would play out, but that is something that we could take 

a look at. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. I think that might be a good thing. 

Mr. Klein from Florida. 

Mr. KLEIN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman; and I thank 

the panel and the people here today in support of a full understanding of what can be done to fix this. 

Obviously, there is the going-forward assessment of what can we 

do to avoid something in the future, but I think we have all heard 

from in our communities the people who have suffered and have 

lost these resources and had certain expectations based on the 

SIPC sign on the door and the rest of these things. 

So first, I want to associate myself with Mr. Ackerman’s and Mr. 

King’s comments. I think they were strong, and I agree, and they 

don’t have to be repeated. 

Certainly representing South Florida, where I am from, we have 

had a whole lot of people who are very, very concerned about the 

38 

whole claw-back issue, again, based on expectations, based on the 

fact that they paid taxes on monies they received, and there doesn’t 

seem to be any relief from that whole story. This is a serious problem. 

And the fact that there is a limited amount of pooled resources 

available is making it even more complicated, particularly based on 

Mr. Ackerman’s last comment that there was an underassessment 

in the first place. And I would agree with that. I think there was 

a ridiculously under-assessed issue. So I guess I want to stress the 

point about addressing the claw-backs and even if we have to 

change the definition of net equity to get to the right place here. 

I think, again, the people who have come to me and talked about 

this—and they have been on both sides of the equation here. But, 

again, just in what is fair in terms of trying to make it whole and 

make sure the SIPC lives up to its obligations, maybe Mr. Ackerman’s comments are the way to get there, but I certainly want to 

encourage as quickly as possible—this has taken a long, long time 

to get through all these things. People have been suffering through 

having lost these resources. Some had to make pretty dramatic 

changes in their lives. 

I also want to mention the Stanford issue, also, because although 

it is complicated, again, it seems to me that these victims also 

should be compensated under the SIPC as well. 

So, again, I think the questions have been asked, and I just want 

to be here to support very strongly, as quickly as possible. A lot of 

frustration has gone on through this whole thing. 

And, again, I look at the victims, and that is one level. But I also 

look at the investor public that really depends, and our country’s 

economy depends, on confidence in investing. And if we don’t have 

that kind of confidence, it creates a whole lot of other problems. 

And we are not looking to go back to the point in time where people are putting money in their mattress. We want people to feel 

when they invest and they are getting a statement and they are 

dealing with people that, in the absence of fraud, that they know 

where this money is and how they can recompense themselves. And 

we have to have a structure going forward that is set up in a way 

to make sure that the resources—and the people who are benefiting from it, these companies, have to stand up for it. And I think 

that is just part of the deal. 

So, Mr. Chairman, I won’t take up any more time. But I want 

to reflect on that issue in as strong as possible statement to get the 

SIPC right on this and to get our folks who have been impacted 

made whole. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Thank you, Mr. Klein. 

The committee would just like one clarification of something I 

think Chairman Johnson might have said on the issue of clawback. Did you say that the trustee was looking on going back limited to only 6 years on the claw-back? 

Mr. JOHNSON. We have a statute of limitation, I believe, as to 

how far back we can go. 

Mr. COFFEE. Six years is the New York rules. And the statute 

lets you use either the Federal rule or the State rules. So 6 years 

is New York’s. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. So we are under New York law on this? 

39 

Mr. COFFEE. The statute lets you use the Federal rule, which I 

believe is 2 years, or the State rule, which is, in New York’s case, 

is 6 years. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. So you have chosen the New York statute? 

Mr. COFFEE. I have chosen nothing. I am just a humble academic. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Mr. Johnson? 

Mr. JOHNSON. That is what the trustee has chosen. Yes. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. So the claw-back can go back 6 years and no further? 

Mr. JOHNSON. That is correct. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Let me thank the panel. You have been very, 

very helpful. This is a very complicated and emotionally charged 

issue. We appreciate all the thought and the work that you have 

put into it, and we know that everybody is going to not be completely satisfied. Some people will be emotionally as well as financially scarred forever, and we know you are doing the best that you 

can. We have to do some work as well. But you have been very 

helpful to us in our deliberations. I thank the members of the committee as well. 

The Chair would also note that some members may have additional questions for the panel which they wish to submit in writing. 

If you would answer them in writing to us, we would be appreciative, and that would be made part of the official record. Without 

objection, the hearing record therefore will remain open for 30 days 

for members to submit questions in writing and for the responses 

to be placed in the record. Without objection, that is so ordered. 

There being no further business before the committee, the panel 

is dismissed with our thanks. 

I have a script. Before we adjourn, the following written statements will be made part of the record of this hearing: the statement of Mr. Ron Stein, president, Network for Investor Action and 

Protection; the statement of Ms. Ronnie Sue Ambrosino, coordinator, Madoff Victims Coordination; a letter dated February 22, 

2010, from Mr. Stephen Harbeck, president of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC), in response to Members’ questions during the December 9, 2009, hearing entitled, ‘‘Additional 

Reforms of the Securities Investors Protection Act’’; a letter dated 

March 4, 2010, from Chairman Kanjorski to Mr. Stephen Harbeck, 

president of SIPC, encouraging the broad representation of the 

newly-created task force to consider SIPA reforms; a letter dated 

August 20, 2010, from Chairman Kanjorski and Ranking Member 

Scott Garrett to Mr. Stephen Harbeck, president of SIPC, requesting claims data; and, finally, a letter dated September 7, 2010, 

from Mr. Harbeck, president, SIPC, in response to a request from 

Chairman Kanjorski and Ranking Member Garrett requesting 

claims data. 

Without objection, it is so ordered. 

The panel is dismissed with the thanks of the committee and the 

Congress, and the hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:09 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.] 

(41) 

A P P E N D I X 

September 23, 2010 

42 


62683.001
43 


62683.002
44 


62683.003
45 


62683.004
46 


62683.005
47 


62683.006
48 


62683.007
49 


62683.008
50 


62683.009
51 


62683.010
52 


62683.011
53 


62683.012
54 


62683.013
55 


62683.014
56 


62683.015
57 


62683.016
58 


62683.017
59 


62683.018
60 


62683.019
61 


62683.020
62 


62683.021
63 


62683.022
64 


62683.023
65 


62683.024
66 


62683.025
67 


62683.026
68 


62683.027
69 


62683.028
70 


62683.029
71 


62683.030
72 


62683.031
73 


62683.032
74 


62683.033
75 


62683.034
76 


62683.035
77 


62683.036
78 


62683.037
79 


62683.038
80 


62683.039
81 


62683.040
82 


62683.041
83 


62683.042
84 


62683.043
85 


62683.044
86 


62683.045
87 


62683.046
88 


62683.047
89 


62683.048
90 


62683.049
91 


62683.050
92 


62683.051
93 


62683.052
94 


62683.053
95 


62683.054
96 


62683.055
97 


62683.056
98 


62683.057
99 


62683.058
100 


62683.059
101 


62683.060
102 


62683.061
103 


62683.062
104 


62683.063
105 


62683.064
106 


62683.065
107 


62683.066
108 


62683.067
109 


62683.068
110 


62683.069
111 


62683.070
112 


62683.071
113 


62683.072
114 


62683.073
115 


62683.074
116 


62683.075
117 


62683.076
118 


62683.077
119 


62683.078
120 


62683.079
121 


62683.080
122 


62683.081
123 


62683.082
124 


62683.083
125 


62683.084
126 


62683.085
127 


62683.086
128 


62683.087
129 


62683.088
130 


62683.089
131 


62683.090
132 


62683.091
133 


62683.092
134 


62683.093
135 


62683.094
136 


62683.095
137 


62683.096
138 


62683.097
139 


62683.098
140 


62683.099
141 


62683.100
142 


62683.101
143 


62683.102
144 


62683.103
145 


62683.104
146 


62683.105
147 


62683.106
148 


62683.107
149 


62683.108
150 


62683.109
151 


62683.110
152 


62683.111
153 


62683.112
154 


62683.113
155 


62683.114
156 


62683.115
157 


62683.116
158 


62683.117
159 


62683.118
160 


62683.119
161 


62683.120
162 


62683.121
163 


62683.122
164 


62683.123
165 


62683.124