He was surprised when his efforts gained attention and other customers sought to join forces, quickly making him the de facto advocate for nearly all customers as head of the grassroots Commodity Customer Coalition. But Koutoulas plays down the “boy wonder” label he’s picked up from cohorts. “Alexander the Great was commanding 48,000 troops at 24,” the former University of Florida classics scholar told Reuters in an interview at Typhon’s New York office. “It’s not like I’m going to war,” he said, sitting in Typhon’s conference room. “Guys go to war at 18.”
Author: jk
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You Want Real Change in the Financial Industry? I suggest you keep an eye on James Koutoulas
If you talk to Koutoulas, it becomes clear very quickly that the main Goliath to his David right now is JPMorgan. “Their hands are on every aspect of this case,” he told me. He went on to explain that JPMorgan was the custodian for MF Global’s segregated customer funds and the company’s biggest lender. He also has concerns that the bank got preferential treatment in its purchase of European sovereign debt and a stake in the London Metals Exchange from the MF Global estate. And now JPMorgan is swooping in as a vulture investor, offering to buy funds claims from customers at a significant discount. The phrase “conflict of interest” hardly seems sufficient to describe JPMorgan’s involvement.
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Here are 3 suspicious involvements JPMorgan has had with the MF Global case so far
Business Insider
Commodity Customer Coalition founder James Koutoulas is requesting that MF Global bankruptcy Judge Martin Glenn investigate three potential legal issues that are said to have occurred in transferring of MF Global assets. -
MF Global client attorney explains in 1 sentence why JPMorgan’s involvement in MF is suspicious
Business Insider
“[JP Morgan] wear way too many hats in this situation. Their fingers are all over this. They were a custodian of customer segregated funds, they were a primary lender to MF Global…, they were head of the creditors’ committee in bankruptcy court, they’re buying customer claims for pennies on the dollar—vulture claims, and it appears that they just may have gotten favorable treatment by purchasing LME stock from MF Global… as well as buying these sovereign debt positions that have turned out to be profitable trades. -
Meet James Koutoulas, The Man Who Never Wanted To Be A Lawyer But Now Fights For 8,000 MF Global Customers
Consistently in the backdrop has been Koutoulas—an enduring presence at bankruptcy trials and Congressional hearings, a knowledgeable voice cited within the pages of major news publications and a stoic figure that represents over 8,000 wronged MF Global clients, pro-bono.
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MF Global customers target JP Morgan
Forbes
James Koutoulas, the lawyer and futures trader who is representing MF Global customers in bankruptcy court, has a message for JP Morgan Chase Chief Executive Jamie Dimon: explain yourself. Koutoulas says he’s extending an “open invitation” to the head of the country’s biggest bank to meet with him, and he wants Dimon to tell him face-to-face why JP Morgan should get paid before farmers and other individual futures customers who are out money. -
Bank Chased Out
NY Post
A growing group of burned MF Global customers, ranging from hedge-fund traders to farmers, are calling for a boycott of JPMorgan Chase over fears that the bank is angling to get paid out first, before individual MF customers. At the same time, Koutoulas is angling to get JPMorgan dumped as the custodial bank for MF customer accounts. He plans to urge brokerage firms that took over MF accounts to ditch JPMorgan as their custodian and give the business to competing banks. -
The Boy Wonder of the MF Global Nightmare
My goal is real simple: getting everybody’s money back,” he says. “And I think we have a very high likelihood of doing just that.” In early November, Koutoulas, along with fellow Chicago futures trader, John Roe – son of Tennessee Republican congressman Dr. Phil Roe – founded the Commodity Customer Coalition, a grassroots group that seeks to represent the complex legal interests of MF Global’s former clients. In the space of just a few weeks, the group has amassed more than 8,000 members, received tens of thousands of dollars of donations and singlehandedly proven that enough people, when banded together, can change the course of a multibillion-dollar bankruptcy.
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Ex- FBI chief pledges independence in MF Global case
Reuters
The deal has met with criticism from at least one lawyer representing customers of MF’s commodities brokerage. Attorney James Koutoulas said the bank should not be entitled to any lien on property that could end up belonging to customers. Koutoulas on Wednesday voiced concern that his objection has been postponed with each extension of the deal, saying the terms of the agreement could leave open “the possibility that continues the very sovereign debt trades that caused the bankruptcy to begin with.” -
MF Global customers taking case to Washington
The Wall Street Journal
The group, which represents customers who hold more than 7,000 MF Global accounts, is revving up a lobbying effort as Congress prepares to grill regulators on the MF Global bankruptcy and a shortfall of customer funds that could total $1.2 billion, twice what was originally thought. It also could turn to the courts as part of its effort to get customer funds back