Are the paying people for lost returns? One one side these returns were fictitious, but on the other if you invested $100 in the 70s, should your claim in 2018 be only $100?
There still needs to be a way to allocate the recoveries. If investor A invested $100 in 1970 and investor B invested $100 in 2006 do they both get the same recovery?
Unfortunately, they do. The conclusion was that, because for quite a period there were no investments, just a scam, that the law says money-in, money-out.
In particular:
> The accounting of "funds stolen" in this matter excludes inflation, interest, time invested, opportunity cost, and falsely reported balances. The interpretation of the laws do not consider time value of money when reimbursing lost funds.
It is worth noting, however, that apparently you can only clawback disbursements for the previous six years, so someone who invested in the 70s most likely did quite well via withdrawals.
as this article says, based on the amount recovered (ignoring opportunity cost), people are getting much more than cents on the dollar back. It would seem that on average they've gotten around 2/3 of their principal back.
