Jake Zamansky Discusses MF Global Case against Corzine with CNBC
In an interview with CNBC Senior Editor John Carney, Jake Zamansky explained our firm’s case against Jon Corzine. We have sued Corzine and others at MF Global on behalf of former MF Global employees who were defrauded into investing in company stock and have been wiped out in the bankruptcy.
If you are a former employee of MF Global who purchased the company’s stock through an employee stock purchase plan and would like to discuss our case and your legal rights, please call (212) 742-1414 or email jake@zamansky.com.
Misled on MF Global Fox News Interview with Greta Van Susteren
by on December 9, 2011
Jake Zamansky discussed the firm’s case on behalf of MF Global employees against Jon Corzine and others with Fox News legal expert and host of On The Record Greta Van Susteren.
The suit is brought against the firm’s former Chief Executive Jon Corzine, other senior executives and directors on behalf of current and former employees who acquired stock in the company while Corzine led the firm. The complaint alleges that the defendants provided false information regarding the company’s financial condition and made statements that artificially inflated the stock price.
Plaintiffs are seeking class action status for all employees who acquired MF Global shares between May 20, 2010 and Nov. 3, 2011 through company-supported plans. Describing the case theory, Jacob Zamansky said, “Jon Corzine and the board breached their fiduciary duty to their employees and destroyed their careers and retirement savings.” At the time of the company’s bankruptcy Oct. 31, the firm had close to 2,900 employees.
Zamansky & Associates is working with co-counsel Girard Gibbs LLP on this matter.
The Search for MF Global’s Missing 1.2 Billion Video
by on November 29, 2011
Zamansky & Associates LLC (“Zamansky”) is investigating MF Global Holdings Inc. (“MF Global”) for possible violation of the federal securities laws.
Below is a video from CNBC about the search for the missing MF Global money with Jake Zamansky talking about the class action lawsuits filed against MF Global.
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Zamansky & Associates Announces Investigation on Behalf of MF Global Employees
by on November 12, 2011
NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Zamansky & Associates has launched an investigation into the collapse and bankruptcy of MF Global, which has resulted in substantial harm to its employees, including job loss and the drop in value of MF Global stock, restricted stock or options awarded or held as a result of participation in an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) or Stock Option Plans.
The firm is investigating claims that may be maintained by MF Global employees, including claims under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Act (WARN) and other state and federal labor laws.
If you were employed by MF Global and wish to discuss your legal rights, please contact Jake Zamansky at (212) 742-1414 or jake@zamansky.com.
MF Global: Big Bets Are Still the Rage on Wall Street
by on November 12, 2011
Below is a recent article published by Securities Attorney Jake Zamansky on Forbes.com:
The macho, bet-the-house-on-red mentality is alive and well on Wall Street. And that’s despite the disastrous meltdown of 2008, which was caused by massive Wall Street bets on derivatives. Those ill-fated gambles nearly destroyed the global capital markets and have put our economy in a hole that it will take years to dig out of.
If you’re skeptical that the gambling spirit is back with a vengeance, all you have to do is look at Jon Corzine and the wreckage of the firm he ran for little more than a year, MF Global.
Details of the firm’s collapse into bankruptcy are still emerging, but one thing is clear: Mr. Corzine will spend the holidays far away from the casino of Wall Street. Instead, he’ll be huddling with his lawyers in deep discussions about his mismanagement of the bank, his billions in misguided bets on European debt, and the location of $600 million of missing customer funds.
Remember, MF Global was a highly specialized institution. It was designed for a select group of investors, those who used its platform to trade in commodities, futures and derivatives. This is heady stuff, for the smartest guys in the room only.
A schoolboy could tell Mr. Corzine and his former traders at MF Global that history doesn’t work like that.
For all its pretentions to headiness, MF Global, we believe, failed to perform several of the basic tasks required of securities houses.
First, MF Global broke the cardinal rule in this industry: it failed to segregate customer funds.
Second, it appears that Jon Corzine used the firm’s capital to play his own hunches, placing bets on European bonds and ignoring the advice of other managers and senior executives.
Third, MF Global issued a $25 million bond offering in August and it’s already worthless.
While Mr. Corzine repeatedly said he wanted to build the next Goldman Sachs, this all reminds me more of Lehman Brothers.
This mess could wind up with civil and criminal charges against management, including Mr. Corzine, as well as massive lawsuits brought by the firm’s victims-its shareholders, bondholders and employees.
The management at MF Global was scrambling weeks before its collapse. The balance sheet was eroding as the firm’s Euro debt trades were rapidly moving against them. They were doing whatever they could to prop up firm as long as they could, but it was like using a spoon to bail out a sinking ocean liner. Senior manager and traders will be held accountable.
The Feds have been AWOL with Lehman Brothers and its executives got off scot-free, so there’s a good chance they will take a very different tack with MF Global. Regulators and law enforcement have to take serious steps to restore confidence in the market.
And Mr. Corzine, please, do us all a favor. In the future stay away from making big bets on the markets. Maybe one of his lawyers can get him a game of Yahtzee for an early Christmas present.
Disclosure: Zamansky & Associates are securities lawyersrepresenting customers in arbitrations and state and federal court litigations against their brokerage firms.
CNBC Interview of Jake Zamansky on MF Global Holdings
by on November 3, 2011
Zamansky & Associates LLC (“Zamansky”) is investigating MF Global Holdings Inc. (“MF Global”) for possible violation of the federal securities laws.
Below is the CNBC video interview of Jacob Zamansky discussing the MF Global Holdings investigation.
ZAMANSKY EXPANDS INVESTIGATION OF MF GLOBAL HOLDINGS
In light of new reports that MF Global may have failed to appropriately segregate customer funds, and could have commingled those funds for use in its highly leverage proprietary trading, we are expanding our investigation of potential securities law violations by MF Global and its officers.
In addition, in August 2011, MF Global offered and sold $325 million in senior debt. Jefferies & Co., Inc. was the lead underwriter for that offering, and we are investigating whether the disclosures in the offering documents contained actionable misstatements or omissions concerning MF Global’s exposure to European sovereign debt, including the debt of Italy, Spain, Portugal and Ireland. This exposure is what led to the firm’s bankruptcy filing this week.
Finally, we are expanding our investigation to determine what legal remedies may be available to shareholders, including MF Global employees who held the company’s stock as a result of their participation in an employee stock ownership plan (”ESOP”).
If you are a customer, debt holder, ESOP participant or other shareholder of MF Global and would like to discuss your legal rights, please contact Jake Zamansky at (212) 742-1414 or jake@zamansky.com.
How Bank of America and MF Global Figure Prominently into the Agape Ponzi Scheme
by on March 26, 2009
My office is actively investigating the Bernard Madoff and Nicholas Cosmo Ponzi schemes. Although our investigations are not yet complete, we’ve already established substantial evidence that Madoff and Cosmo didn’t act alone – some major publicly-traded companies figure prominently in their schemes. I’ll post my Madoff findings shortly, but here is what we’ve uncovered so far about Cosmo’s Ponzi scheme.
As outlined in the class action lawsuit we filed today, we allege that Bank of America (NYSE:BAC), the nation’s largest bank, and MF Global (NYSE:MF), a major commodities futures trading firm, substantially assisted Cosmo’s fraud and played a major role in the loss of investor funds. The evidence is substantial that Bank of America and MF Global knew, or should have known, that Cosmo was committing fraud.
Cosmo is a convicted felon who after completing a nearly two year stint in federal prison founded Agape World, Inc., a Long Island company specializing in making short-term “bridge” construction loans carrying high interest rates. Through a network of about a dozen brokers, Cosmo gathered some $400 million from investors who wanted to realize the hefty rates of returns. Unknown to the investors, Cosmo re-sold the same interests hundreds, if not thousands, of times. Most of Cosmo’s investors were blue-collar workers with limited investment understanding or experience. One of the plaintiffs we represent is seriously ill with stomach cancer and his wife just gave birth to a child.
As I’ve noted earlier, Agape’s marketing materials listed Bank of America as the company’s “banking agent,” but the “Bank of Opportunity” provided more than routine banking services on behalf of Agape. We’ve learned that a Bank of America employee maintained an office at Agape’s headquarters which was some thirty miles from the West Hempstead branch where she was based. The employee regularly cut checks at Cosmo’s behest and performed other functions normally associated with those of a personal assistant. The Bank of America employee had a bird’s eye view of Cosmo’s financial transactions and knew first hand that the substantial inflow of funds was coming from investors and that most of the outflows were used to subsidize Cosmo’s lavish lifestyle or pay off his brokers.
Cosmo also speculated heavily in commodities futures trading that resulted in more than $80 million in losses. Despite being a convicted felon and having been permanently banned by FINRA from the securities industry, Cosmo managed to open accounts at MF Global, where he did most of his trading, and other commodities firms.
MF Global isn’t known for its risk management and compliance. The firm last year suffered more than $140 million in losses because a trader made some ill-timed wheat-price bets that “substantially exceeded his authorized trading limits.” The company this week admitted at a UK trial to defrauding a former client after previously issuing repeated denials. It’s been reported that at least one MF Global rival refused to do business with Cosmo because he didn’t pass muster with the compliance department.
It will be interesting to see how Bank of America and MF Global publicly respond to our lawsuit. On its website Bank of America proudly declares that “It is the policy of Bank of America to take all reasonable and appropriate steps to prevent persons engaged in money laundering, fraud or other financial crimes…” Given that Bank of America also figures prominently into another Ponzi scheme run by convicted felon Andy Bowdoin, I look forward to learning more about Bank of America’s supposed preventive measures.
As for MF Global, the company was quoted this week in connection with another fraud as saying that “MF Global’s corporate values require that all employees maintain the highest standards of ethics and integrity. We have zero tolerance for anything but.” Apparently, opening an account for a felon convicted of securities fraud who was permanently banned from the securities industry doesn’t violate MF Global’s esteemed values.
Sadly, the SEC again has been found to be sleeping. The Agape wrongdoing was exposed by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. Underscoring the SEC’s chronic somnambulism, Agape’s website remains live where an application form is still prominently displayed.