Since about a month ago, everyone’s been watching the case of Maynard Jenkins to see if, in the end, the SEC would be allowed to “clawback” the $4.1 million bonus he took during a period which turned out to not be profitable for his company.

Today the case ended badly for high paid Wall Street execs and traders: The judge allowed the SEC to “clawback” Maynard’s bonus.
This means that the SEC has been allowed to re-claim a bonus legally awarded to an exec because earnings were later restated. It has huge consequences for the financial world which will be announced on Friday, when Feinberg says which banks he will target.
Here’s some background on why this guy’s case might have just decided the financial future of many Wall Streeters who earned bonuses in 2008.

As the Wall Street Journal put it a month ago:
It is the first time the SEC has used a dormant part of the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley act to recover money from an otherwise innocent CEO whose company restated earnings.
Maynard’s company, CSK Auto, restated earnings because they cooked the books. But that discovery came well after Maynard received his bonus and he was named an innocent party in the mis-accounting scheme.
The end result of Maynard’s case is huge because now the SEC stands on much firmer ground to be able to “clawback” bonuses based on an accounting restatement whether or not the person holds personal (legal) accountability for that restatement.

Feinberg will announce what he plans to do with this potential new freedom on Friday.
From FOXNews:
Feinberg declined to say whether the five remaining banks — Citigroup, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Bank of America, — would be repaying any of the claw-back money; his mandate covers 418 banks, but people on Wall Street suspect the main focus of his mandate will be the large financial institutions.