Overview
In a 79-page decision today, Judge Marrero largely denied a series of motions to dismiss a class action brought by customers of MF Global against the company and others formerly affiliated with the company. Echoing an earlier 105-page ruling denying a motion to dismiss a securities class action brought by MF Global shareholders, Judge Marrero lamented that the parties could not reduce or eliminate the extensive motion practice:
While this wasteful and rancorous litigation unfolds, investment customers harmed by these unfortunate events must wait for any compensation due them, without knowing how much they will recover or when they will receive any assets they wrongfully lost because of the violations of law claimed in this litigation. Surely, the parties' conduct here does not exemplify the goal of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure: "to secure the just, speedy, and inexpensive determination of every action and proceeding." . . . . In a spectacular financial collapse of the magnitude that Plaintiffs exhaustively detail in their mended complaint, an account that draws from and is supported by reports issued by legislative and regulatory bodies on the public record, it is reasonable to infer that someone, somewhere, at some time did something wrong to set in motion such an extraordinary chain of events causing such extensive harm to so many people and interests . . . . Yet MF Global's high-ranking officers, including several of the Defendants here, continue to assert, as they did in opposing claims asserted by MF Global securities investors as well as by the CFTC, that it is not even plausible that anyone of them could bear any responsibility for any part of the harm MF Global's disintegration caused.Prior posts on the MF Global cases are here.
