Bruce Carton

Today, 71-year-old Bernard Madoff was sentenced to the maximum sentence–150 years in prison (aka, “The Full Bernie”)–for his multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme. U.S. District Judge Denny Chin issued the sentence today in the Southern District of New York. My initial quick thoughts: Whoa!!! After CW’s Matt Kelly set the over/under on the sentence at 75 years, […]

As more people learn daily, Twitter is a way to get a message out to the entire world. The twist, of course, is that your message will only be seen by people who have chosen to follow your updates. A “tweet” by a person who has no followers is the proverbial tree falling in the […]

Back in July 2008 I discussed an emerging tactic in the defense of SEC enforcement actions: to settle the case against you in all respects except for the issue of the SEC’s demand for an officer and director bar, and to litigate the bar issue. In October 2007, for example, Frank McPike, former interim CEO […]

What if I were to tell you that a Form 8-K filed yesterday with the SEC has a 280+ word discussion comparing the challenge of estimating legal fees to “being asked to predict how many minutes after being force fed a dead frog we would throw-up?” Is that something you might be interested in? (If […]

After the high-profile scandals involving first Ebbers and now Madoff, I have to think that the name “Bernard” has seen its last birth certificate for some time. It’s not as if the name – which was in the “Top 100” at the turn of the century – was exactly flourishing before 2002, when the first […]

Lloyd: What are the chances of a guy like you and a girl like me… ending up together?Mary: Well, that’s pretty difficult to say.Lloyd: Hit me with it! I’ve come a long way to see you, Mary. The least you can do is level with me. What are my chances?Mary: Not good.Lloyd: You mean, not […]

In an important decision for auditors, BDO International received a favorable jury verdict yesterday in Florida which clears it from responsibility for part of a $521.7 million verdict over negligent audits. The jury found that BDO International does not control U.S. member firm BDO Seidman LLP, which in August 2007 was required by another jury […]

In a letter addressed to SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro on Monday, Senator Chuck Grassley says he is tired of waiting for an unredacted copy of the recent Inspector General report (discussed here) about the activities of SEC attorneys who may have engaged in insider trading and violations of the SEC’s own trading policies. According to […]

Let’s try to quickly catch up on the back and forth that has gone on since yesterday between House Financial Services Capital Markets Subcommittee Chairman Paul Kanjorski and SEC Inspector General H. David Kotz. Yesterday, Kanjorski announced that he sent a letter to Kotz calling for an update by the end of this month on […]

Dick Durbin, the Senate’s No. 2 Democrat, reportedly sold more than $115,000 worth of stocks and mutual-fund shares on Sept. 19 and used much of the money to invest in Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. The twist, according to Bloomberg, is that he did so “the day after then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve […]