For those looking for some good info to assist with recovery for retirement plans and IRAs impacted by the Madoff Ponzi scheme, Proskauer Rose has posted a Transcript which contains some helpful information. Excerpt:
As Ed mentioned earlier, SIPC has said that the Madoff firm records are not in good order. Therefore, it is essential you gather your own documentation and be sure that it is in order and complete. . . You should gather all of your records relating to receipt, that you received from the Madoff firm of your deposits. This could be extremely important as proof of what entity it is that your money was deposited into. SIPC insurance, as you heard earlier, applies to the Madoff broker/dealer, which was called Bernard Madoff Investment Securities, LLC. But SIPC does not apply to any funds deposited with other entities Madoff may have been operating. Therefore, if your money was deposited into an entity different from the broker/dealer, your deposit may not be covered by SIPC insurance. An opinion about SIPC coverage for you would require a full evaluation of your individual documents.
More. . .
. . . [F]or the institutional contacts, where assets are invested through asset managers, advisors, fiduciaries, feeder funds, and the like, it is likely that those institutional holders also have their own insurance coverage, their own investment management coverage, their own fiduciary liability coverage, their ERISA bonds, their fidelity bonds, that should be endorsed in a way to provide coverage for the activities of off-site managers that commit fraudulent and dishonest conduct that results in a loss of the investment. So, to the extent assets are held in those areas, there should be additional sources of policies, often with very substantial limits and very broad coverage to allow for recovery of additional losses. And so, really, the overriding point here is to look at insurance with an open mind and, most importantly, look at it early, because otherwise the potential avenues of recovery might well be forfeited.
(Also, the transcript answers a question many lawyers are being asked these days: Can the SEC be sued for this mess? Answer: pg. 18 of the Transcript)
Source: A Taxing Matter