Thomas Hermanek

Beginning in 2013, Tom worked on behalf of the SIPA Trustee to investigate and unwind the Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities Ponzi scheme — the largest such fraud in history. Tom reconstructed hundreds of millions of trading records from numerous core data sources dating back to the 1970’s, reconciled those records against third-party sources, and developed systematic procedures for identifying atypical activity or “red flags” indicating fraud. Furthermore, Tom created several custom applications to automate the production of core documents to both the client and key parties involved.  Throughout Tom’s involvement in the matter, SPIC was able to claw back over $5.1 billion for defrauded investors.

Additionally, Tom has worked on two other large-scale Ponzi scheme cases with significant media coverage. Tom aided in the design and execution of tracing algorithms to recreate the fraud and follow the flow of funds through numerous accounts and data sources. As a result, Tom and the team were able to identify harmed investors and calculate damages for remediation purposes.

For the U.S. Department of Justice, Tom led the settlement of numerous lawsuits alleging the historical mismanagement of trust accounts through complex data modeling and abstract problem solving, resulting in over $2 billion in savings for the federal government. Tom’s methodology and procedures for calculating the potential damages by natural resource is still being utilized by the government to settle similar claims.

More recently, Tom has been focused on conducting analyses for banks and credit unions involved in class action lawsuits centered on improperly charged overdraft fees in accordance with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). These matters require complex data scraping and modeling techniques to identify the fees and determine the potential exposure for the institution.