Senate Banking Committee to Hold MF Global Hearing A former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation who has come under fire as the bankruptcy trustee for MF Global will appear next week before a Congressional panel that is examining the collapse of the brokerage firm. Louis Freeh, who has the responsibility of returning assets to creditors of the commodities brokerage firm, is expected to testify alongside regulators as well as another trustee responsible for the return of missing customer funds. The two trustees, whose missions in some ways are at odds, have been facing off over the privacy of documents and the distribution of assets. The hearing, scheduled for April 24 before the Senate Banking Committee, will be the sixth Congressional inquiry stemming from MF Global's bankruptcy and the disappearance of customer money. Nearly six months later, farmers, hedge funds and other customers of MF Global are still owed an estimated $1.6 billion. Unlike previous hearings, which focused on the wrongdoing that may have led to the firm's collapse, the Senate Banking Committee's hearing will focus on ways to better protect customer money and improve regulatory oversight. "As investigators seek to recover MF Global customer funds and hold accountable those responsible for any wrongdoing, Congress needs to focus its attention on preventing future abuses and the other critical public policy issues raised by the collapse of MF Global," Tim Johnson, a South Dakota Democrat who is chairman of the committee, said in a statement. This hearing will help us identify ways to restore market confidence for farmers, ranchers and investors through improved regulatory oversight and strengthened protections for customer accounts. The hearing will be the first time that the public hears from Mr. Freeh, who has faced pressure over his handling of the bankruptcy process. He initially declined to share certain documents with regulators and his fellow trustee, James W. Giddens. In addition, a furor arose when it emerged that Mr. Freeh had been contemplating awarding bonuses to MF Global executives who remained at the firm, a common practice in bankruptcies. Mr. Freeh's fellow panelists are all experienced in MF Global hearings. Mr. Freeh and Mr. Giddens, the trustee who is responsible for recovering customer money, will be joined by a list of regulators, including Robert Cook, the director of the division of trading and markets at Securities and Exchange Commission and Richard Ketchum, the head of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. Terrence A. Duffy, the chairman of the CME Group, MF Global's front-line regulator, will testify for the fourth time about MF Global's collapse. Jill Sommers, a commissioner at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, will also appear before the committee. The trading commission was MF Global's federal regulator and is leading the investigation into wrongdoing at MF Global, along with federal prosecutors and the F.B.I. The hearing comes weeks after a fiery partisan exhibition from the House Financial Services Committee's oversight panel. That hearing focused on the final days of MF Global with an eye toward who was at fault. It often veered into partisan bickering over information-sharing between members of both parties and whether the lack of criminal charges against the former chief, Jon S. Corzine, was the result of his strong ties to the Democratic Party. Regulators, the focus of the latest hearing, have felt heat on two fronts since the collapse of MF Global: why the firm was allowed to operate with shoddy risk controls and why the missing money has not been recovered. While many customers are clamoring for charges in the case, authorities have privately indicated that the missing money was most likely the result of sloppy record-keeping and the chaos that engulfed the firm in its final days, not criminal wrongdoing. Lawmakers are addressing regulatory gaps that allowed for the breach of customer money. The Senate Agriculture Committee has sought input from industry players on a range of policy changes, including keeping customers better updated on the whereabouts of their money, more regular reporting to authorities and creating an insurance fund to backstop losses in customer accounts.