大型机构投资者如今也尝到了许多纳税人在金融危机期间失败受挫的滋味：为肆意妄为的金融机构造成的损失买单。

    当然，这次处于漩涡中心的是明富环球金融集团（MF Global）。美国券商明富环球金融集团的历史可以追溯到18世纪，是一家深受信赖的金融机构，如今却申请破产，同时涉嫌挪用高达6亿美元的客户资金。

    明富环球金融集团在万圣节申请破产保护两周后，人们依然满腹疑问。调查过程充满矛盾，原本旨在恢复公众信心，结果却适得其反。周一，本案的破产受托人宣布，明富环球金融集团账户上去向不明的资金可能远远不止6亿美元——实际数额也许高达12亿美元。数亿美元的交易资金和抵押品在没有通知的情况下遭到冻结，极大地扰乱了金融衍生品市场。联邦检察官、监管机构和法务会计正在夜以继日地工作，追查这些失踪资金的下落。尽管如此，就在本月早些时候，明富环球金融集团的律师还曾经向纽约法官保证，“不存在资金短缺问题”。

    本案有什么与众不同的地方？有位对冲基金经理人说的很有道理：“明富环球金融集团破产的可怕之处在于，这个国家没有政治意愿来维护民众的利益。我们应该记住这件事的教训，那就是如果有人打算偷你的钱，根本就没人会保护你。我的意思是说，这是金融界最可怕的事情。”

    公众感到愤怒，同时认为如果他们自己不采取措施，那么没有人会为他们着想——几周来，投资者不断收集信息，团结起来保护自己的权益。其中最引人瞩目的团体是商品客户联盟（Commodity Customer Coalition），台风资本管理公司（Typhon Capital Management）首席执行官詹姆斯•库图拉斯代表明富环球金融集团的几千位前客户领导这个联盟。交易员们也卷了进来，其中有亚伯拉罕投资管理公司（Abraham Investment Management）的安德鲁•亚伯拉罕。他撰写了大量文章，披露投资者的权益遭到忽视，只有部分资金获得返还。他认为这种方式并不公平，华盛顿的政府官员应该受到指责。

    各方努力目前初见成效。11月17日，美国破产法院的马丁•格伦法官批准解冻5.2亿美元现金，返还给明富环球金融集团的2.3万名客户，这笔资金将在一周内发放完毕。

    Big institutional investors are getting a taste of what many frustrated taxpayers experienced during the financial crisis: Being on the hook for losses of a major financial firm against their wishes.

    This time, of course, it's MF Global at the center of the dispute. A once-trusted brokerage with roots dating back to the 1700s, MF Global is now a bankrupt firm suspected of misappropriating customer funds to the tune of at least $600 million.

    More than two weeks after MF Global's Halloween bankruptcy filing, there are more questions than answers and a surfeit of conflicts in an investigation that should be aiming to restore the public's confidence, but is doing the opposite. On Monday, the bankruptcy trustee for the case announced that there may be much more than $600 million missing from MF Global accounts -- perhaps as much as $1.2 billion. Hundreds of millions of dollars of trading capital and collateral were frozen without notice, dramatically disrupting the derivatives marketplace and ushering in a phalanx of federal prosecutors, regulatory agencies and forensic accountants working around the clock to determine where the missing money is. This, after a lawyer for MF Global assured a New York judge earlier this month "there is no shortfall."

    What's different about this case? One hedge fund executive summed it up best: "What is scary about MF Global is that there is no political will in this country to look out for people. Let this be a lesson that, if someone tries to steal from you, there is no one who is going to save you. I mean it is literally the most frightening thing that can happen in finance."

    Led by a sense of outrage -- as well as the conviction that if they don't look out for themselves, no one else will -- investors have been pooling information and banding together to defend themselves for weeks. The most prominent group has been the Commodity Customer Coalition, spearheaded by James Koutoulas, chief executive of Typhon Capital Management, who's representing a few thousand former MF Global clients. Traders have also taken to the blogosphere, including Andrew Abraham of Abraham Investment Management, who's written extensively about how investors have been ignored, refunded only partially and in lopsided fashion and ought to complain to officials in Washington.

    It looks as though the pushback could finally be working: Thursday U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Martin Glenn approved a $520 million cash distribution to about 23,000 MF Global customers, which will take around a week to disburse.

摩根大通银行

    然而还有许多备受争议的问题，最重要的就是失踪资金的下落。同时数亿美元的资金出现在摩根大通银行（J.P. Morgan）的保管账户上，但是这些钱却并没有返还给明富环球金融集团的客户，而客户本来应该优先获得账户资金。投资者抱怨这种做法不合理，他们应该拿回自己的现金，客户账户应该和经纪公司账户严格区分开来。CME集团旗下的芝加哥商品交易所（Chicago Mercantile Exchange）是全球最大的期货市场和明富环球金融集团的自我监管机构，该交易所表示这种做法违反了规定。

    尽管明富环球金融集团拖欠无担保债权人摩根大通银行12亿美元的债务，但是作为明富环球的客户，他们的资金依然下落不明，在这种的情况下，他们本来不需要祈求摩根大通银行凯恩。詹姆斯•库图拉斯称：“我们主张，如果明富环球金融集团的混合基金来自于客户账户或是非公司账户，摩根大通银行就不能对资金提出所有权要求，即使他们现在拥有这笔钱。”目前交易量已经受到影响，主要是因为投资者的资金遭到冻结，深受追加保证金通知的困扰，商品交易陷入困境。明富环球金融集团的破产受托人表示，目前有名义价值1,000亿美元的300万笔投资陷入困境。

    破产受托人、休斯•哈伯德-里德公司（Hughes Hubbard & Reed LLC）的詹姆斯•格里登向《财富》杂志（Fortune）表示，他已经开始调查摩根大通银行持有明富环球金融集团的资金，但是在调查结果尚未公布的情况下，他不会要求摩根大通银行归还这笔钱。摩根大通银行发言人证实，该银行的确持有这笔钱，由于调查正在进行，目前无意返还资金。

    有位纽约独立交易员正在等待归还100万美元的失踪资金，他说“这件事有点不对劲，你说呢？破产信托人应该照顾我们的利益，要求归还资金，交给法庭处理。摩根大通为什么要抓着这笔钱不放？我不是债权人，但这本来就是我的钱。”詹姆斯•格里登本人曾经在摩根大通工作多年，他的律师事务所经过无记名投票承接了明富环球金融集团破产案，因此，他的立场不足为奇。

Roads lead back to J.P. Morgan

    But a list of contentious issues remains, and at the top is the missing money. While hundreds of millions of dollars have turned up in a custodial account at J.P. Morgan (JPM), none of those funds have been restored to MF Global clients, who should have been first in line to get them. Investors have been crying foul, and so they should. Customer accounts are supposed to be kept strictly segregated from a brokerage firm's money. According to the CME Group's (CME) Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the world's dominant futures market and the designated "self-regulatory organization" of MF Global, those rules were violated.

    Although MF Global owes J.P. Morgan $1.2 billion as an unsecured creditor, clients of MF Global whose funds are still missing should not have to beg J.P. Morgan for relief. "We're simply asserting that if MF Global commingled funds from customer accounts, or cannot properly account for them, J.P. Morgan can't lay claim to those funds as if they were their own," Koutoulas has asserted. Already, trading volumes have taken a hit because investors have been deprived of their own capital, socked with margin calls, or found live trades in limbo. According to the bankruptcy trustee, more than 3 million positions with a notional value of $100 billion were left in the lurch.

    The trustee, James Giddens of Hughes Hubbard & Reed LLC, tells Fortune he has begun an investigation into the MF Global funds held at J.P. Morgan, but he has not asked the bank to return the money, pending the outcome. A spokeswoman for J.P. Morgan confirmed the bank is holding the money and said it has no intention of releasing the funds while the investigation is ongoing.

    "There is something that's a little wrong with this, isn't there? It seems the trustee should be looking out for us, demanding this money back and going to the judge," says an independent trader in New York still awaiting $1 million of his missing funds. "Why is J.P. Morgan holding it? I am not a creditor. This is my money." Giddens himself has a long history of doing work for J.P. Morgan, which not surprisingly voted in favor of appointing his law firm to the MF Global case (and the vote was not unanimous).

乔恩•科尔津的人脉

    11月4日，乔恩•科尔津在外界的质疑声中宣布辞去明富环球金融集团首席执行官的职务。科尔津的背景深厚，曾经是高盛集团（Goldman Sachs）的首席执行官，作为民主党人担任过新泽西州州长，从政道路历经坎坷。美国商品期货交易委员会（Commodity Futures Trading Commission）主席加利•根斯勒是乔恩•科尔津在高盛集团的同事，而该委员会正是调查明富环球金融集团的机构之一。因此，加利•根斯勒要求回避调查工作。商品期货交易委员会委员吉尔•萨默斯接替了他的位置。吉尔•萨默斯是该委员会的资深委员，这次任命表明华盛顿无意打压金融市场，因为萨默斯曾经在芝加哥商品交易所任职，被外界看做期货业的老朋友，同时和明富环球金融集团存在利害冲突。

    事实证明，芝加哥商品交易所的行为也没有受到审查，据一位了解明富环球金融集团丑闻的交易所知情人透露，在明富环球金融集团申请破产前不久，芝加哥商品交易所已经发现了危险信号，但是没有按照惯例向美国商品期货交易委员会披露。这种做法违反了芝加哥商品交易所作为自我监管机构的规定。这位纽约交易员表示：“这种做法荒谬可笑，一个自我监管机构实际上是没有监管的机构。这就是公开交易的内幕，真是令人毛骨悚然。”芝加哥商品交易所方面则发布公告，称这些报道充斥着“不实说法”。

    与此同时，得“感谢”美国商品期货交易委员会，正是这个期货市场的重要监督机构放松了明富环球金融集团在未经客户许可的情况下动用客户资金的限制规定——这种做法是明富环球金融集团和其他公司的特权，也是他们多年积极游说的成果。上周末，有报道指出，针对明富环球金融集团的调查显示，该集团可能在申请破产前违反规定，动用客户资金偿还债务，同时用来支持该集团持有的63亿美元欧洲国家主权债券，最终才导致全面崩溃。

    这意味着这笔资金不仅是下落不明，而且可能一去不返。许多大型交易商认为，明富环球金融集团的资金谜团最终会梳理清楚，但是这对小投资者无济于事，他们还要继续遭受损失。

    大太平洋财富管理公司（Great Pacific Wealth Management）打算帮助客户维护权益，该公司经理西恩•麦吉利夫雷称：“我们预计会有些波折，但是这件事从一开始就不顺利。破产丑闻让我们感到失望，也让成千上万的期货投资者和他们的券商感到失望。我每天都在联系破产受托人。有一次我接通了语音信箱，但是通常电话都无人接听。”

    译者:凌云

Corzine connection

    The MF Global implosion is also fraught with questions about the recently defrocked Jon Corzine, who resigned as MF Global's chief executive earlier this month. Corzine's background as a co-chairman at Goldman Sachs before he became Democratic New Jersey governor presents certain difficulties. For one, Gary Gensler, the head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission – one of a handful of agencies investigating the MF Global disaster – previously worked with Corzine at Goldman Sachs (GS). As a result, he had to recuse himself from leading the probe. CFTC commissioner Jill Sommers has taken his place. While Sommers is a senior commissioner, this appointment shows Washington's continued disinterest in mounting a real crackdown, as Sommers is widely seen as friend to the futures industry and – in keeping with MF Global's conflict-of-interest quotient – a former employee of the CME.

    The CME's own actions, it turns out, also are not above scrutiny, as a source privy to a non-public review of the MF Global scandal at the exchange reveals that red flags cropped up shortly before MF Global's collapse, but were not disclosed to the CFTC as they should have been. This would be a violation of the rules applying to the CME as a self-regulatory organization. "It's absurd that a self-regulating body can exist when it's a non-regulating body," the New York trader says. "This is a public exchange. Everyone is terrified." For its part, the CME has issued a statement saying that such reports have been filled with "inaccuracies."

    Meanwhile, the CFTC, which is supposed to be the central watchdog agency of the futures market, can be thanked for relaxing the rules restricting how firms like MF Global use customer funds when the customer's not using it – a privilege for which MF Global, among others, furiously lobbied for years. Late last week, reports trickled in from the MF Global probe that the firm may have unlawfully relaxed those rules ahead of its bankruptcy, using client funds to pay off its debts and bolstering the $6.3 billion bet on sovereign European debt that ultimately overturned the brokerage.

    All of which means the money might not just be missing, it could be gone for good. While many large-sized traders believe that the tangles in the MF Global web will eventually be sorted out, that doesn't help the smaller investors who continue to suffer.

    "We expected some hiccups, but it's been botched from the get-go," says Sean McGillivray of Great Pacific Wealth Management, an introducing brokerage that's attempting to advocate for its clients. "It's shut us down and it's effectively shut down tens of thousands of futures investors and their supporting brokerages. I try to reach the trustee every day. Once I got voicemail. But usually it rings off the hook."