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.
Blog
-
MF Global client attorney explains in 1 sentence why JPMorgan’s involvement in MF is suspicious
-
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.
-
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.
-
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 -
Commodity Customer Coalition forms to reclaim MF Global funds
Chicago Tribune
The coalition grew out of a meeting with James L. Koutoulas, chief executive of commodity trading company Typhon Capital Management of Chicago, shortly after the announcement of MF Global’s bankruptcy on Oct. 31. We found each other through social media. We set up a conference call, and before we knew it, there were hundreds of people on it — just talking about the situation, how untenable it was and how there was really nobody representing customer interests. … Informally, we started talking about what we could do, what legal avenues we could pursue, to get before the court. But it was so cost-prohibitive that nobody wanted to do it. We’re talking about getting just one pleading before the (bankruptcy) court costing $25,000 or $50,000. -
MF Global: The mess that keeps getting messier
Fortune
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. -
Benzinga talks to MF Global customer counsel James Koutoulas
Forbes
On Monday, the Commodity Customer Coalition filed court papers objecting to a lien on MF Global assets secured by J.P. Morgan (NYSE: JPM) in exchange for allowing the bankrupt firm to use around $8 million in cash for another 5 days. J.P. Morgan, who is the largest creditor of MF Global, is also seeking “super-priority” liens on MF assets, which would put the bank at the head of the line to recover funds – before even customers are made whole. Koutoulas told Benzinga that “I think JP Morgan realizes we made some really good points in our objection to their motion, and they are stalling the hearing on this as much as they can.”