I'm sure someone from Washington was about to do this. Hold your breath and wait because it's going to happen any second now. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if Geithner was leading the charge and begging for action to happen. Meanwhile, Cuomo goes to work again.
J. Ezra Merkin, a prominent New York financier whose private clients lost more than $2 billion in the collapse of Bernard L. Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, has been accused of fraud and deception in a civil lawsuit filed Monday by the New York attorney general, Andrew M. Cuomo.Due diligence? What a quaint way of doing business and there's simply not enough time in this fast paced world to bother with such trifling affairs. It should be easy for the non-profits to raise money and besides, what's a few billion among friends anyway?
The lawsuit, filed under state charity and securities laws, claims that Mr. Merkin improperly collected more than $470 million in fees from his clients, who included more than a dozen nonprofit organizations, by “falsely claiming he actively managed their funds” when in fact he simply handed their money over to Mr. Madoff, without adequate investigation or oversight.
The complaint did not accuse Mr. Merkin of knowing about Mr. Madoff’s vast fraud. But it charged that he had failed to carry out the diligent research and investigation he had promised, and in some cases had deliberately deceived clients about investing with Mr. Madoff.
