Corzine charged in connection with misuse of customer funds A US regulator has filed civil charges against Jon Corzine, former chief executive of MF Global, and Edith O'Brien, its former assistant treasurer, in connection with the misuse of nearly $1bn of customer funds before the brokerage's 2011 collapse. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission said in a complaint filed in the Southern District of New York on Thursday that Mr Corzine "failed to supervise diligently the activities of MF Global's officers, employees, and agents." The commission also settled charges against MF Global, accusing it of misusing clients" funds, in exchange for the return of the almost $1bn plus a $100m penalty. The CFTC is seeking unspecified penalties from Mr Corzine and Ms O'Brien. Mr Corzine was chief executive of MF Global when it collapsed on October 31 2011. The hole in customer funds developed after the futures brokerage allegedly dipped into clients" accounts to make up for part of its own funding shortfall. "The allegations in our complaint serve as a stark reminder that we will enforce the law against responsible individuals at all levels of a firm to ensure that customer funds are properly safeguarded every minute of every day," David Meister, CFTC's enforcement director, said in a statement. Bart Chilton, one of the group's five commissioners, said the investigation was a "bellwether case." A lawyer for Ms O'Brien did not immediately respond to requests for comment. MF Global's bankruptcy trustee, which has already filed its own civil suit against the two executives, said the terms of the settlement were "appropriate." A spokesman for Mr Corzine said in a statement: "This is an unprecedented lawsuit based on meritless allegations that Mr Corzine failed to supervise an experienced back office professional who was located in a different city and who did not report to Mr Corzine or even to anyone who reported to Mr Corzine." MF Global collapsed after making billions of dollars" worth of wrong-way bets on eurozone bonds and then finding itself unable to stump up enough cash to satisfy its trading partners. Regulators later discovered that money was missing from what were supposed to be separate, or "segregated," customer accounts. Outrage over the lost customer funds sparked a probe by Congress's House financial services committee, as well as the CFTC probe. Shortly before failing, MF Global transferred $200m from one of its client accounts to cover a $175m overdraft at JPMorgan, according to the committee's report. Mr Corzine has denied instructing his employees to make the transfer. The CFTC's lawsuit does not accuse him of authorising the dip into customer accounts but instead charges him with failing to ensure sufficient controls at his company. Mr Corzine has previously said he spoke to Ms O'Brien concerning the transfer to JPMorgan. She has become a central figure in the government's probe into the company's collapse, although she invoked her Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination during congressional testimony. The CFTC complaint cites phone records between Ms O'Brien and an employee at MF Global's UK operations in the frenzied days leading to the firm's collapse. "The only place I had the $75m, ok, was in seg," Ms O'Brien says referring to segregated accounts, according to the CFTC. Ms O'Brien added that she "move[s] money all the time ... from seg over to house and house over to the [broker-dealer]. OK, that's what we do all the time because we don't have enough capital. Mr Corzine is recorded telling an employee to "raise hell" with JPMorgan to obtain funds from a credit facility to "cover up" a funding gap, the complaint says. The CFTC says Mr Corzine did not receive "assurances that the funds were returned." The CFTC could opt to ban Mr Corzine and Ms O'Brien from trading commodities. That would be a blow to Mr Corzine, who has been trading his own money in his spare time, according to a person familiar with his activities. Before joining MF Global, Mr Corzine was a New Jersey governor and CEO of Goldman Sachs. MF Global's bankruptcy trustee has so far paid out about 89 per cent of the money owed to the brokerage's former customers That figure should rise to 100 cents on the dollar after the company receives funds due from its London subsidiary.