James Koutoulas and MF Global: Business Insider’s 2011 Profile

Business Insider’s December 16, 2011 profile by Lisa Du covered James Koutoulas’s response to the MF Global bankruptcy and the early organizing of the Commodity Customers Coalition (CCC). The report describes his role at a moment when customers were seeking access to funds held at the failed brokerage.

What the 2011 report described

The article reported that Koutoulas had clients affected by the bankruptcy and that approximately $55 million connected to his customers was held at MF Global. It described how he began advocating for his own clients, then helped organize a wider group of former customers. The report said the CCC grew from an initial conference call of about 100 people to more than 8,000 customers.

Du also described Koutoulas’s early effort to seek transfers of customer accounts to new brokers and clearing firms, followed by outreach to other customers and industry and legal contacts. These details reflect reporting from December 2011, not current figures.

Later public record

In 2014, the Securities Investor Protection Corporation announced that the trustee would begin a final distribution that fully satisfied customer claims. SIPC credited the trustee and staff for that result; this page does not suggest that any one advocate alone caused the recovery. Read SIPC’s announcement.

Original coverage

Read Lisa Du’s Business Insider profile (December 16, 2011). This page is an original summary and points readers to the publisher’s article; it does not reproduce it.

For James Koutoulas’s current roles and broader background, see the James Koutoulas profile.