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Monday, October 31, 2011

Panic Behind The MF Scenes As Company Refuses To Disclose Information To Regulators Even In Death

I, for one, wonder why the SEC/CFTC regulators are not 'unhappy' with the failure of the metals-manipulating banking cartel to provide data.

By Jonathan Spicer and Nick Brown

As in life, so in death. Reuters reports that "U.S. regulators are unhappy with the failure of MF Global Holdings Ltd to provide them with the required data and records, a source close to one regulator told Reuters on Monday. "So far they've been very disappointed with the cooperation in the fulsomeness of records and data from MF," the source said, noting regulators have been working with the firm since late last week. "They were supposed to be able to show us their books and they're supposed to be able to tell us
what's what and where their customer funds are and how they've been segregated and protected and to date we don't have the information that we should have," the individual told Reuters." Seriously, as Erin Burnett would say, you are already bankrupt. Just how much worse is it if you even in death you still are hiding secrets? And at this point it should be obvious to everyone: whatever MF is hiding is not something that will hurt it or much less its stakeholders for which the management team obviously never cared one iota. After all the company is already dead. Whatever is on its books has huge impacts to those either behind the corporate veil, read Mr. Corzine, who may or may not have regulatory issues arising from 10(b)-5 "concerns", or more probably, to other banks and Primary Dealers. And with even one simple affidavit still to be filed in Bankruptcy Court, the panic behind the scene is palpable.

From Reuters:
MF Global, which filed for bankruptcy protection on Monday, is the biggest U.S. casualty of Europe's debt crisis, and the seventh-largest bankruptcy by assets in U.S. history.
Regulators had expressed "grave concerns" about the viability of MF Global, which filed for bankruptcy only after "no viable alternative was available in the limited time leading up to the regulators' deadline," the company's chief operating officer, Bradley Abelow, said in a court filing.
U.S. regulators held a series of calls on Monday related to MF Global.
The Financial Stability Oversight Council, which is headed by the Treasury Department, received "a series of oral reports" from the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Federal Reserve, according to one Treasury Department official.
No other details of the calls were provided.
So: just what secrets is the corpse of MF about to reveal? We, for one, can't wait.

ZeroHedge