Investigation of Failure of the SEC to Uncover Bernard Madoff's Ponzi Scheme - Public Version (Report No. OIG-509)

SEC Office of Inspector General, Investigation of Failure of the SEC to Uncover Bernard Madoff's Ponzi Scheme, public version, Report No. OIG-509, 31 Aug 2009 (477 pp.): how the SEC handled six substantive complaints about Madoff from 1992 to 2008 (including Harry Markopolos's 2000, 2001 and 2005 submissions), its examinations and investigations, and why they failed. It predates the Dodd-Frank reward programme; the only reward-related content is the Enforcement staff's suspicion that Markopolos "was looking for a bounty" and the report's note that he would not have been eligible for the insider-trading bounty (Exchange Act s. 21A(e)) in a Ponzi case (PDF pp. ~23, 248-249, and the conclusions). No programme statistics, rules or awards. Method: the 477-page report was searched in full text for bounty, reward, whistleblower and informant passages and those passages read; the rest is investigative narrative about Madoff, out of scope. The scandal event and the Markopolos case were already recorded; nothing new added. Rules restated from other sources are now recorded from this document too (decision 8).