Today marks the beginning of a $6.7 billion payout to the former customers of MF Global Holdings. The process is expected to take several weeks but will return all the money that is owed to the approximately 26,500 former commodities and securities customers of the failed brokerage. “Checks are going in the mail that will make all public customers of MF Global Inc. 100% whole,” trustee James Giddens said in a statement. Read Full Article at FIA SmartBrief...

NFA regularly reviews the continued effectiveness of its regulatory requirements. Over the past three years, NFA has issued 26 Member Responsibility Actions (MRAs), and 92% of those MRAs were against CPO and/or CTA Members. Most of these matters involved misuse of customer funds (including one CPO that improperly used pool funds because it had insufficient assets to operate as a going concern) and/or misstating net asset values and/or performance information. In light of these actions, NFA is reviewing the current regulatory structure applicable to CPO and CTA operations. In particular, NFA is looking at ways to strengthen the regulatory structure…...

Peregrine Financial Group’s bankruptcy trustee plans to return up to $41 million to former customers of the failed futures brokerage in the second payout since the firm collapsed 17 months ago. Court-appointed trustee Ira Bodenstein is seeking to return about 7 percent, or $27.5 million, to Peregrine customers who traded on U.S. exchanges, according to court filings. In the first payout last year, the group, which comprised the bulk of the firm’s clients, received back about 30 percent of the money they had in accounts when Peregrine failed. Clients who traded on foreign markets would get back about 45 percent…...

Jon Corzine, former CEO of MF Global, lost a bid to dismiss litigation that seeks to hold him, other executives and banks responsible for the company’s bankruptcy. “Defendants’ contentions would suggest that … perhaps the debacle must have been the fateful work of supernatural forces, or else that the explanation for a spectacular multi-billion dollar crash of a global corporate giant is simply that ‘stuff happens,’ ” U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero wrote in his ruling.  >Click here to read the full article...

The MF Global trustee has received court approval to advance more than $600 million of general estate assets to customers to allow 100% distributions to all customers.  As a result, introducing brokers with general unsecured claims may sooner receive partial interim distributions.  It is unclear whether the advance will result in introducing brokers ultimately receiving lower recoveries. While a portion of the advanced assets represents relatively certain future recoveries of customer assets, a portion also does not.  Nonetheless, all future recoveries of future customer assets, including those from pending class action litigation, will be allocated to the general estate and…...

A federal judge rejected U.S. Bank’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit that accused the bank of letting Peregrine Financial founder Russell Wasendorf Sr secure loans against money that belonged to his brokerage’s customers, a court filing showed. >Click here for the full article...

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Martin Glenn has given MF Global Holdings the green light to pay commodity customers all of the money they are owed. “I don’t know of anyone who thought when the case started that the foreign and domestic commodity customers would be looking at 100% recoveries,” Glenn said. >Click here for the full article...

Lawyers for former Gov. Jon Corzine and 25 other ex-MF Global workers have asked a federal judge overseeing the firm’s bankruptcy to reconsider his decision to not let their clients immediately tap an additional $10 million in insurance money earmarked for their legal defense. Go to NJ.com for the full article. ...

MF Global trustee James Giddens has asked a bankruptcy court for permission to return the remaining money owed to the firm’s customers who traded on domestic exchanges. “The relief sought in this motion, if granted, should allow every one of the more than 26,000 former customers of MFGI with allowed net equity claims to be paid in full before the end of the calendar year,” a court filing said. To read the full article, go to www.reuters.com...

The SIPA trustee of collapsed futures broker MF Global, Inc. (“MFGI”) recently issued letters to many IBs asserting that the trustee may file preference actions to recover commission payments made by MFGI to the IBs within 90 days of MFGI’s October 31, 2011 bankruptcy filing. The letter indicates that IBs should contact an attorney in the trustee’s office by September 20, 2013 to discuss the issue. Depending on individual IBs’ particular facts and circumstances, there are a number of defenses and arguments that the IBs may be able to assert to such preference actions. IBs should analyze how these defenses…...