This isn’t always the case. People who took cash out of Madoff’s ponzi scheme had to return it & take their proportionatey share of the total returned to all investors in exchange.
Cash that’s been paid out from a bankrupt company can be clawed back by the bankrupty trustee. Usually this only applies to payments made shortly before the company goes under though.
> This isn’t always the case. People who took cash out of Madoff’s ponzi scheme had to return it & [...]
Quite true. And I've not followed the details about SBF's schemes...but it sounds like he's different from Madoff in three important respects, all of which seem likely to make claw-backs less viable:
- Diverting funds to cover trading losses at an allied & now-bankrupt firm. If Madoff had (say) directly lost $1B by buying some stock which then fell in value, would there have been any possible claw-back on that $1B? I'd bet "no".
- Lots of funds were "laundered" through various sorts of crypto transactions. Anything "crypto" is probably a far greasier pig, to try to wrestle the real money back.
- Layers of corporate structure, HQ'ed in an offshore tax haven. IANAL, and certainly not a lawyer qualified in tax haven corporate securities law, but this sounds more like a gold mine for the lawyers than good news for the victims.
Cash that’s been paid out from a bankrupt company can be clawed back by the bankrupty trustee. Usually this only applies to payments made shortly before the company goes under though.