The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday announced an agreement with New York money manager Bernard Madoff that could eventually force him to pay a civil fine and return money raised from investors.

The partial judgment must be approved by the judge overseeing the Madoff case in Federal Court in Manhattan.

The SEC announced the consent of Madoff to a proposed partial judgment imposing a permanent injunction and continuing relief previously imposed in the preliminary injunction order, entered on Dec. 18, 2008. Madoff consented to the partial judgment without admitting or denying the allegations of the SEC’s complaint, filed on Dec. 11, 2008.

The complaint alleges that Madoff and Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC have committed a US$50 billion fraud. The complaint alleges that Madoff informed two senior employees that his investment advisory business was a fraud. Madoff told these employees that he was “finished,” that he had “absolutely nothing,” that “it’s all just one big lie,” and that it was “basically, a giant Ponzi scheme.”

Monday’s proposed partial judgment would leave the issues of the amount of disgorgement, prejudgment interest and civil penalty to be imposed against Madoff to be decided at a later time.

The civil proceeding is separate from the criminal case against Madoff.