Eric J. Swanson is an American lawyer who worked at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and dated and eventually married the niece of

Bernard Madoff Bernard Lawrence Madoff ( ; April 29, 1938April 14, 2021) was an American fraudster and financier who was the admitted mastermind of the largest Ponzi scheme in history, worth about $64.8 billion. He was at one time chairman of the NASDAQ ...

while the SEC was investigating Madoff's investment firm for what was eventually revealed to be a massive

Ponzi scheme A Ponzi scheme (, ) is a form of fraud that lures investors and pays profits to earlier investors with funds from more recent investors. Named after Italian businessman Charles Ponzi, the scheme leads victims to believe that profits are comin ...

. Swanson is currently the Senior Vice President, General Counsel, and Secretary of

BATS Global Markets Bats Global Markets is a global stock exchange operator based in Lenexa, Kansas, with additional offices in London, New York, Chicago, and Singapore. Bats was founded in June 2005, became operator of a licensed U.S. stock exchange in 2008 and o ...

, the third-largest stock exchange in the United States. Swanson worked at the

Securities and Exchange Commission The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government, created in the aftermath of the Wall Street Crash of 1929. The primary purpose of the SEC is to enforce the law against market ...

as a lawyer from 1996 to 2006, rising to the level of Assistant Director of the Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations. Subsequently, he worked at

Ameriprise Financial Ameriprise Financial, Inc. is a diversified financial services company and bank holding company incorporated in Delaware and headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It provides financial planning products and services, including wealth mana ...

as Vice President of Regulatory Strategy. Swanson is married to

Shana Madoff Shana Diane Madoff ( ; born December 8, 1967), sometimes referred to as Shana Madoff Skoller Swanson, is an American former attorney who is now a yoga teacher. She is the daughter of Peter Madoff, and a niece of Bernie Madoff, who employed her ...

, who worked at the firm of her uncle

as a rules and compliance officer and attorney until it was closed when the multibillion-dollar

Madoff investment scandal The Madoff investment scandal was a major case of stock and securities fraud discovered in late 2008. In December of that year, Bernie Madoff, the former NASDAQ chairman and founder of the Wall Street firm Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities ...

was uncovered. Swanson met Shana Madoff originally when he was conducting an inadequate SEC examination of whether Bernie Madoff's firm was

front running Front running, also known as tailgating, is the prohibited practice of entering into an equity ( stock) trade, option, futures contract, derivative, or security-based swap to capitalize on advance, nonpublic knowledge of a large ("block") pend ...

customer trades from the market making unit—completely missing the multi-billion dollar

that Shana's own cousins (Bernie's sons) would expose to the SEC in December 2008.

Early life and education

Swanson, a

Minneapolis, Minnesota Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origi ...

native, graduated from the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public land-grant research university in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. ...

(B.A.; 1990) and obtained a J.D. degree from the

Hamline University School of Law Hamline University School of Law was a private law school affiliated with Hamline University in Saint Paul, Minnesota. The School of Law was founded in 1972 as the Midwestern School of Law by a group of legal professionals. In 1976, Midwestern ...

(J.D.; 1993).Labaton, Stephen, "Unlikely Player Pulled Into Madoff Swirl"
December 18, 2008, ''New York Times''

Securities and Exchange Commission

Following a period of time in which he practiced non-securities-related law, Swanson worked at the

(SEC) as a lawyer from August 1996 to 2006. While at the SEC, he received in August 2004 a Capital Markets Award, related to work in the area of SEC examinations of

conflicts of interest A conflict of interest (COI) is a situation in which a person or organization is involved in multiple wikt:interest#Noun, interests, finance, financial or otherwise, and serving one interest could involve working against another. Typically, t ...

. At the end of his tenure, he was Assistant Director of the Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations, and reported to the head of the SEC's inspection program, supervising 8–18 staffers.

Madoff

Swanson is the husband of

, who is daughter of

Peter Madoff Participants in the Madoff investment scandal included employees of Bernard Madoff's investment firm with specific knowledge of the Ponzi scheme, a three-person accounting firm that assembled his reports, and a network of feeder funds that inves ...

. She is also a niece of

, who operated a

that is considered to be the largest financial fraud in U.S. history. She worked under her father at her uncle's firm, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities (BMIS), as a rules and compliance officer and attorney. She reported to her father who was responsible for ensuring that BMIS complied with its legal and regulatory obligations, and signed documents assuring the SEC that BMIS's business records were truthful and accurate. Swanson met Shana Madoff in April 2003. The two met in 2003 at an industry event during an examination of Bernie Madoff by the SEC as to whether Bernie Madoff was

customer orders, totally missing the multi-billion dollar

that would be exposed in December 2008. The two had periodic contact thereafter in connection with Swanson speaking at industry events organized by a SIFMA committee on which Shana Madoff sat. During 2003 Swanson sent Shana's father Peter Madoff two regulatory requests, although by the time of the second request Swanson's responsibility for the examination had been transferred to a different Assistant Director at the SEC. In March 2004, SEC lawyer

Genevievette Walker-Lightfoot Genevievette Walker-Lightfoot is a former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) attorney. She worked on the Bernard Madoff investigation in 2004, as the Lead Investigator for the SEC on the case. She discovered key elements of the Madoff ...

, who was reviewing Madoff's firm, raised questions to Swanson (Walker-Lightfoot's boss's supervisor) about unusual trading at a Bernie Madoff fund; Walker-Lightfoot was told to instead concentrate on an unrelated matter. Swanson and Walker-Lightfoot's boss asked for her research, but did not act upon it. In February 2006, Swanson was emailed by Assistant Director John Nee that the SEC’s New York Regional Office was investigating a complaint that Bernard Madoff might be running “the biggest Ponzi scheme ever.” In April 2006, Swanson began to date Shana Madoff. Swanson reported the relationship to his supervisor who wrote in an email "I guess we won't be investigating Madoff anytime soon." In 2006, the SEC's New York Enforcement Office, of which Swanson was not a part, closed its investigation of Bernie Madoff. On 15 September 2006, Swanson left the SEC. On 8 December 2006, Swanson and Shana Madoff became engaged. In 2009, after the scandal broke, SEC Inspector General

H. David Kotz H. David Kotz, also known as Harold David Kotz (born June 24, 1966), is a managing director at Berkeley Research Group. Kotz was a litigation associate at three law firms from 1990–99, and then a labor attorney at the U.S. Agency for Internat ...

investigated, and concluded that there was no evidence that Swanson's romantic relationship with Shana Madoff influenced the closing of the SEC investigation of Madoff. He did conclude, however, that: "Swanson's communication with Shana during the period of time he was engaged in a cause examination of her uncle and father's firm, created the appearance of a potential conflict of interest." The September 29, 2007, wedding between Swanson and Shana Madoff was attended by Lori Richards, the SEC's Director of Compliance Investigations and Examinations, who oversaw the Division in which Swanson worked at the SEC. In 2008, Bernard Madoff spoke at a business roundtable meeting of his "very close" relationship with an SEC lawyer, and chuckled: "my niece even married one". In April 2009, Richards recused herself from the Madoff investigation.

Ameriprise Financial

Subsequent to working at the SEC, Swanson was a Vice President of regulatory strategy at

, a financial services company based in Minnesota.

BATS

Swanson is the Senior Vice President, General Counsel, and Secretary of

, an electronic stock exchange that is the third-largest stock exchange in the United States, which he joined as General Counsel in January 2008. He was hired in part to assist the exchange in its effort to obtain exchange status from the SEC.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Swanson, Eric Living people People associated with the Madoff investment scandal Lawyers from Minneapolis University of Minnesota alumni Place of birth missing (living people) Year of birth missing (living people) Hamline University School of Law alumni U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission personnel Madoff family Fellows of the American Physical Society