Dear Members -
With this issue, we are resuming our normal publication schedule of the NIBA Journal. The concerns surrounding the MF Global failure are far from over, and many NIBA members are still reeling from the abrupt transfer of their business and adjusting to new FCMs. NIBA will continue to fight for the rights of our members.
During the first week of January, NIBA’s legal counsel called upon the MFG trustee to release the commission runs generated for October, 2011. We knew the runs were produced, but the trustee refused to distribute them. That caused reporting problems for many of our members. While the NFA has been somewhat flexible with regard to their requirements, filing accurate bankruptcy claims and federal taxes is difficult, if not impossible without these commission runs. Only three days after our demand, on January 6th, the trustee’s office agreed to our request.
The procedure for receiving your October commission run is detailed by Steve Pherson, partner at Schuyler, Roche & Crisham, NIBA’s longtime legal advisor, later in this issue.
In the last month, we added a number of new contributors to the MF Global Update. Our feed is updated automatically each time there is a new development to report. Find information from ICE, CME Group and Commodity Compliance Services among others at that Update on our website.
In another significant development, the CFTC has responded to our inquiries about the legitimate usages of segregated funds by FCMs and issues surrounding SROs, by indicating their intention to include NIBA’s opinions during their further review. That should be taking place this spring.
Your NIBA membership made all of these actions possible. Your membership and conference fees covered the fees associated with all the legal representation, media distribution and other costs which were incurred in order to achieve these results. We are happy that no additional contributions or donations have been necessary, and no hike in membership dues is necessary for the NIBA to continue to respond to developments surrounding the MFG failure.
The NIBA 2012 Membership Campaign is open right now. Please renew or join by going to the online membership application or contacting John Jensen, hwfi@pacbell.net.
Best for 2012,
Melinda
Melinda Schramm
Chairman