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发帖数: 29846 | 1 by Kyle Colona on March 26, 2012
Congressional hearings continue into the MF Global snafu and with each day
come more revelations that might finger Jon Corzine for ordering fund
transfers to cover margin calls on sovereign debt positions that ultimately
brought the company down.
In fact several news sources are reporting that documents obtained by
lawmakers in connection with the hearings include emails from the firm’s
Chicago-based treasurer, Edith Obrien. These messages may indicate that he
gave “direct instructions to transfer $200 million from a customer fund
account to meet an overdraft in a brokerage account.”
While the transfer to that account with JP Morgan Chase was previously made
public, the Bloomberg News report on the matter is the first time that
officials with the defunct firm link the fallen CEO Corzine to those
transfers.
And this is not merely a matter of “he said she said” as Corzine
previously testified that he was not aware of any such transfers. In short,
while the facts still need to be considered by all authorities and Mr.
Corzine is presumed to be innocent, the contradiction here could open the
door to other legal problems for the fallen head honcho, perjury perhaps?
In hearings before the House panel in December 2011, Corzine reportedly said
he did not order any improper transfer, and that never intended a misuse of
customer funds at MF Global, and that he did not know where client funds
went.
“I never gave any instruction to misuse customer funds, I never intended
anyone at MF Global to misuse customer funds and I don’t believe that
anything I said could reasonably have been interpreted as an instruction to
misuse customer funds,” Corzine said.
Of course, the key words in that quote are “improper” and “intended” and
those two words are certainly enough for any lawyer to use to create a “
reasonable doubt.” But then, this writer is not an attorney and did not
stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night.
That being said, there are contradictory reports that say the so-called
order did not include customer finds transfers. According to the New York
Times DealBook reportage, the hot e-mail, seems to say that the company had
transferred $175 million to replenish an overdrawn account at JPMorgan Chase
, and that the money was a so-called “house wire.”
The bottom line: as the authorities continue their investigations and
Congressional lawmakers attract media attention with their hearings, the
real story over the collapse of MF Global has yet to be told.
Kyle Colona is a New York based freelance writer and a Feature Writer for
the Compliance Exchange and Wall Street Job Report. He has an extensive
background in legal and regulatory affairs in the financial services sector
and his work has appeared in a variety of print and on-line publications. |
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