Louis Freeh is stepping down from his role assisting in the liquidation of MF Global, but this is more of a celebratory “going out on top” type exit than getting out of a bad situation – with a federal bankruptcy judge recently approving a final liquidation plan for Corzine’s collapsed firm. And that means that most the remaining hurdles have finally been cleared, including one particularly important detail (emphasis ours):

The plan could not go into effect until certain conditions were met or waived, one of which was that the estate had enough cash to pay its claims, according to court papers filed in February.

The other trustee who was brought on to help unwind the broker-dealer portion of MF Global, James Giddens, still has some work to do, mainly resolving the final dispute of the global settlement with J.P. Morgan. Giddens is not only tasked with returning all the misappropriated funds, but also getting a bankruptcy and federal judge to approve this settlement. The plan includes a full payout for former customers, while J.P. Morgan is slated to receive 76 percent of its total claim and uninsured creditors will receive 34 percent. Giddens will seek the final approval for that plan next month.

In the meantime, the new board in charge of liquidating MF Global’s assets is supposed to have that wrapped up after a two year term. This, plus last week’s news that the CFTC is going after US Bank in the in the PFG case, makes us hopeful the customers in these cases will be made whole eventually – and in this case late is always better than never.

Now, moving forward… it would obviously be better if this type of thing never happened, and never happens again. And along those lines, we’re still pushing for regulatory changes, such as account insurance for futures accounts, to add to the extra customer protections already put in place since this time last year. All in all, things are looking up.