Corzine digging even deeper hole
The good news is that at least Jon Corzine didn't plead the fifth in his three congressional hearings, which got testier with each one. But in the end, Corzine, the ex-CEO of MF Global, came off looking awful.
At best, he appeared to be a guy who was out of touch with his company's top executives even as the firm tottered on the brink of solvency. He wanted to deny personal responsibility at all costs, was willing to sell out employees and was as evasive as possible under direct questioning. There are so many ways you can deny knowledge, and the cumulative effect is that you start to look fishy, whether you did anything wrong or not. Exasperated Congressmen made that pretty clear--one was quoted by DealBook: "Slippery when dry."
As of now, Corzine stands accused by the head of the CME that he in fact knew that the firm transferred customer funds to corporate use in ways that were inappropriate. The charge cannot be taken lightly. The genesis of the information was apparently the CFO of the firm. Did the CFO and other top executives inform him of the transfer? Did he somehow approve the transfer? There are so many unanswered questions, even at the end of three hearings.
You can bet that investigators will be taking a close look at this. If they cannot get Corzine on anything else, they might be able to get him on perjury. "Will Jon Corzine go to jail?" one commentator asks. "Some of the smartest players on Wall Street say yes, and here's why: the country wants to see a banker sent to prison." The best bet may be Sarbanes Oxley Section 302 lapses, but we'll see what the investigators come up with.
For more:
- here's the article
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