Agriculture Committee hearing, MF Global
M E M O R A N D U M
TO: Reporters and Editors
RE: Agriculture Committee hearing, MF Global
DA: Thursday, Dec. 1, 2011
Sen. Chuck Grassley, a member of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, today made the following comment after a hearing with Gary Gensler, chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), and Mary Schapiro, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Committee members asked questions about the agencies’ work leading up to the MF Global bankruptcy, which has left farmers and other investors in the lurch.
“Despite an effort from several of us, there wasn’t a lot of specificity from Chairman Gensler about exactly how and when the CFTC learned of the MF Global collapse and how and when he talked to Jon Corzine about the problem. It’s surprising that Chairman Gensler didn’t have a more precise timeline to offer during his testimony. Establishing the specifics of what happened is key to figuring out how the system failed and how to fix it going forward. And that’s in addition to the immediate task of helping to minimize the damage for farmers and other investors caught in the MF Global mess. Congress will need to keep drilling down. The hearing left a lot of questions unanswered.”
