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SEC names new top lawyer By Bernie Becker - 01/07/13 01:12 PM ET The Securities and Exchange Commission said Monday that Geoffrey Aronow would take over as its general counsel. Aronow, a lawyer in the Washington office of Bingham McCutcheon, has previous government experience, having served as head of the enforcement division at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The SEC's new top lawyer also has counseled clients about issues before the commission and the CFTC, and becomes one of the first top appointments from the SEC's new chairwoman, Elisse Walter. Aronow, for instance, represented the chief financial officer for MF...

When Mahesh Desai checked his MF Global account 15 months ago, his US$580,000 nest egg was gone. Like thousands of investors and farmers who had their savings with MF Global, Desai lost his money in the brokerage firm's chaotic final days. Regulators discovered US$1.6 billion was trapped in a web of improper wire transfers, a breach that sent federal investigators scrambling to build a case. A bankruptcy court will today review a proposal that would return 93 per cent of the missing money to customers like Desai. And the trustee who has submitted the proposal, James Giddens, has quietly identified...

MF Global’s Bankruptcy Nears a Happy ConclusionWhen Mahesh Desai checked his MF Global account 15 months ago, his $580,000 nest egg was gone. Like thousands of investors and farmers who had their savings with MF Global, Mr. Desai lost his money in the brokerage firm’s chaotic final days. Regulators discovered that $1.6 billion was trapped in a web of improper wire transfers, a stunning breach that sent federal investigators scrambling to build a case. On Thursday, a bankruptcy court will review a proposal that would return 93 percent of the missing money to customers like Mr. Desai...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A bankruptcy judge on Tuesday rejected a bid by former MF Global customers to depose the collapsed brokerage's former chief, Jon Corzine. In a written ruling in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan, Judge Martin Glenn said the Commodity Customer Coalition, which had sought permission to question Corzine and other former MF Global insiders, lacked standing because it is not a direct creditor in the case. The coalition, a grassroots group led by Chicago-based commodities trader James Koutoulas, bills itself as representing the interests of thousands of traders whose accounts at MF Global were frozen when the...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A bankruptcy judge on Tuesday rejected a bid by former MF Global customers to depose the collapsed brokerage's former chief, Jon Corzine. In a written ruling in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan, Judge Martin Glenn said the Commodity Customer Coalition, which had sought permission to question Corzine and other former MF Global insiders, lacked standing because it is not a direct creditor in the case. [use link for rest of article.] The coalition, a grassroots group led by Chicago-based commodities trader James Koutoulas, bills itself as representing the interests of thousands of traders whose accounts at...

Poor management decisions by MF Global's former CEO Jon Corzine triggered the brokerage firm's collapse, while lax protections for customer funds contributed to the loss of an estimated $1.6 billion of customer money, U.S. congressional investigators have determined.

Poor management decisions by MF Global's former CEO Jon Corzine triggered the brokerage firm's collapse, while lax protections for customer funds contributed to the loss of an estimated $1.6 billion of customer money, U.S. congressional investigators have determined. Evidence unearthed by the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight puts the blame squarely on Corzine, the panel's chairman Rep. Randy Neugebauer, said in a preview of the report that will be released on Thursday.

Who broke the law by raiding customer accounts at MF Global Holdings MFGLQ +18.52% Ltd.? Investigators seem no closer to the answer than they were when the New York brokerage firm filed for bankruptcy exactly a year ago Wednesday, owing thousands of farmers and ranchers, hedge funds and other investors an estimated $1.6 billion. Their money was supposed to be stashed safely at MF Global, but company officials used much of it for margin calls and other obligations. The last, best hope for a breakthrough in the probe is Edith O'Brien, the former assistant treasurer at MF Global. Working in...

Corzine Asks Judge to Dismiss MF Global Fraud SuitBy PATRICK FITZGERALD October 23, 2012, 1:30 p.m. ET Lawyers for former MF Global Holdings Ltd. Chief Executive Jon Corzine are asking a federal judge to toss a civil fraud lawsuit accusing him of misleading investors about the risky bets the futures firm was taking before its collapse a year ago. Mr. Corzine's lawyers blasted the investors' suit as a "jumble of assertions and accusations" that makes "no sense" that should be dismissed in a filing Friday in U.S. District Court in New York. A group of banks and underwriters—among them units...

MF trustee can team up with plaintiffs against Corzine - judgeTrustee can assign claims against Corzine, other insiders By Nick Brown Thu Sep 6, 2012 3:02am IST NEW YORK, Sept 5 (Reuters) - A Manhattan bankruptcy judge said on Wednesday he was prepared to allow the trustee unwinding MF Global's broker-dealer to join forces with some of the company's former customers who have sued ex-Chief Executive Jon Corzine and other insiders. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Martin Glenn said he will make his decision official when the trustee, James Giddens, files court papers outlining the details of the cooperative effort. The filing...

Corzine says MF trustee encroaching on his defenseBy Nick Brown Thu Aug 30, 2012 3:52am IST NEW YORK, Aug 29 (Reuters) - Former MF Global Chief Executive Jon Corzine is fighting efforts by a bankruptcy trustee to join forces with customers suing him over the commodities brokerage's demise. Corzine, along with other current and former MF executives, filed an objection in court on Wednesday arguing that their ability to defend themselves would be hurt if trustee James Giddens is allowed to assign his legal claims to plaintiffs in existing cases. The executives are defendants in multiple lawsuits accusing them of...

Corzine gets the New Black Panther treatmentBruce Johnson August 25, 2012 **SNIP** Jon Corzine is accused of using segregated customer funds for backing his bad trading decisions at the firm MF Global. The funds were indeed used for that purpose. People know who made the call. Immunity to them was not offered. Testimony of those who know what occurred and at whose hand, not wanted. Why? The referee doesn't really want to know.

Stock Market Watch reported: Best quotes from Koutoulas: “Crimes were unequivocally committed and I will do whatever I can to continue to do the government’s job for it and help see justice done.” “MF Global had a choice. Do we cheat or go out of business. And they cheated. They broke the law. And these took these customer funds to cover margin calls.” “Attorney General Eric Holder’s Department of Justice is the biggest enabler of financial crime in U.S. history.” And the kill shot: “I will take this to all 50 states. And we will win. We will get a...

Jon Corzine Might Launch His Own Hedge FundHe is unlikely to face criminal charges over the failure of MF Global By Christopher Freeburn, InvestorPlace Writer Aug 17, 2012, 9:28 am EDT With reports circulating that federal regulators will not seek criminal charges in the collapse of brokerage MF Global, the firm’s former head, Jon Corzine is considering a new career option. The one-time Governor of New Jersey and former head of Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS), is mulling the idea of starting his own hedge fund, according to the New York Times. **SNIP** However, sources close to the former...

Authorities are winding down their criminal investigation of the failed brokarage firm, MF Global, and despite the lack of oversight and the loss of more than $1 billion in customer funds, it now seems unlikely that anyone at the firm will face criminal charges.

A criminal investigation into the collapse of the brokerage firm MF Global and the disappearance of about $1 billion in customer money is now heading into its final stage without charges expected against any top executives. After 10 months of stitching together evidence on the firm’s demise, criminal investigators are concluding that chaos and porous risk controls at the firm, rather than fraud, allowed the money to disappear, according to people involved in the case.

Hardcore stuff here. We cover the Sentinel Ruling destroying the notion of Customer Segregated Funds, FDIC "insurance", the forthcoming nationalizaion of your savings, the farce of electoral politics, and the inevitibility of collapse and the mere goal of simply leaving a record that not everyone in this culture was an emotional child unable to deal with objective, mathematical reality. Warning: Lots of crazy eyes and my patented Extreme Facial Expressions™ magnified by a somewhat choppy Skype connection. A Matter of Records: ANN BARNHARDT, WARREN POLLOCK (MUST see) (Sentinel Federal Appeals Court Ruling - 8-9-12)

Those wondering why the Department of Justice has refused to go after Jon Corzine for the vaporization of $1.6 billion in MF Global client funds need look no further than the documents uncovered by the Government Accountability Institute that reveal that the now-defunct MF Global was a client of Attorney General Eric Holder and Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer’s former law firm, Covington & Burling. There’s more. Records also reveal that MF Global’s trustee for the Chapter 11 bankruptcy retained as its general bankruptcy counsel Morrison & Foerester--the very law firm from which Associate Attorney General Tony West came to...

Remember when the entire segregated account fiasco was supposedly fixed in the aftermath of the November 2011 MF Global bankruptcy, and where regulators: the CFTC, the SEC, the CME, and anyone you asked, swore up and down this would never happen again? Turns out that 7 months later, the spirit of MFG has struck again, only this time with one letter switched: it is now known as PFG, as we suggested first 3 hours ago when we broke the story.

Small U.S. futures broker PFGBest said its accounts had been effectively frozen on Monday after a suicide attempt by the firm's founder set off an investigation into possible "accounting irregulaties." In a dramatic turn that seems likely to trigger a new round of anxiety over the stability of the brokerage industry less than a year after the collapse of much larger MF Global, the Cedar Falls, Iowa-based firm told customers that they would be limited to liquidating positions until further notice. The disclosure came hours after founder and owner Russell R. Wasendorf, Sr., was found in his car near the...