Senator Debbie Stabenow, Chairwoman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, today applauded the Commodity Futures Trading Commission for its continued efforts to demand accountability in the wake of the bankruptcy of MF Global. Chairwoman Stabenow’s statement comes as the CFTC filed civil charges against former MF Global Executives in federal court today. The company’s bankruptcy was the eighth largest in history and nearly $1.2 billion in segregated customer funds went missing from the firm. The Senate Agriculture Committee has held several hearings on the MF Global bankruptcy.
“This is an important step forward and I appreciate that the CFTC continues to pursue this matter and fight for customers and market integrity,” Chairwoman Stabenow said. “As I have said before, there must be accountability in this case and we need to do all we can to help MF Global customers get their money back. The loss of $1.2 billion in customer funds represents an extraordinary breach of trust and devastated thousands of farmers, ranchers and small businesses who rely on the futures market to hedge business risk. The Senate Agriculture Committee will continue throughout the upcoming CFTC reauthorization process to consider additional protections to ensure that customer money is not used improperly and to prevent situations like the MF Global bankruptcy from happening again.”