Sen. Franken Holds Call With Federal Regulators to Help Minnesota Grain and Feed Industry Deal with Collapse of MF Global
Says Call is First Step in Getting Answers For Minnesotans Affected By Collapse; Presses Regulators to Investigate MF’s Mismanagement & Restore Customers’ Accounts
Today, U.S. Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) convened a call with federal commodity and securities regulators to answer questions and help grain elevators, cooperatives, and farmers in Minnesota deal with the sudden bankruptcy of MF Global, a major derivatives broker that mismanaged millions of dollars invested by Minnesota's agriculture industry. Sen. Franken also sent a letter today to key regulators pressing them to investigate MF Global’s account mismanagement and ensure that customers' accounts are restored.
"Minnesota's farmers, co-ops, and grain elevators trusted this company with their accounts, and it appears that their money was mismanaged and possibly lost," said Sen. Franken. "While we don't yet know whether it'll be possible to recover these funds, Minnesota's agriculture community needs to know that I'm going to do everything I can to make sure they get their money back. Today's call was the first step in allowing Minnesotans who were hurt to ask questions and to begin to get answers."
Providing answers and expertise on the call were regulators from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC), and the office of the court-appointed trustee that is leading the liquidation of MF Global. Participating in the call were farmers and representatives from co-ops and grain elevators in southern Minnesota, which is likely to be hit particularly hard by MF Global's bankruptcy.
Today, Sen. Franken also wrote a letter to the heads of the CFTC, the SIPC, and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), as well as the court-appointed trustee that is leading the liquidation of MF Global. In that letter, which can be found here, he urged regulators to investigate MF Global's account mismanagement as quickly as possible and to restore customers' accounts.
