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The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear arguments by an investor in Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme for overturning a Second Circuit decision on how to calculate the amount of investor withdrawals that can be clawed back to the Madoff bankruptcy estate.

The high court denied certiorari to Malcolm Sage's petition, which argued the liquidation trustee of Madoff's company had used a profit calculation method barred by law and that the Second Circuit misquoted one of its own prior rulings when it found for the trustee.

Madoff's scheme collapsed in 2008 and Irving Picard was appointed to oversee the liquidation of Madoff's company. He has since filed scores of lawsuits seeking to recover profits some investors made from the scheme in order to compensate investors who lost money, and reported he had clawed back nearly $14.7 billion as of the end of March.

Picard sought $16.9 million he alleged Sage and his companies, Sage Associates and Sage Realty, had taken in profits, calculated with the "net investment method," which involves subtracting withdrawals from the amounts invested.

Sage argued it should have been calculated using the amounts shown in the fraudulent account statements, but the Second Circuit upheld the use of NIM in August 2023, citing its own 2011 decision allowing its use in the Madoff case.

Sage argued in his certiorari petition the federal Securities Investors Protection Act under which Picard was appointed contains no authority for using the NIM method, and even if it did the Second Circuit's 2011 "net equity" ruling said the use of NIM was allowed because Madoff claimed to be making stock trades on his own initiative. Sage said while this was the case for one of his accounts, he was directing the trades on the other account.