Like its predecessors, the bankrupt brokerage formerly run by Jon Corzine took advantage of an accounting maneuver to keep certain financial obligations off its books, making the firm look less indebted and thus less a risk than it really was.
On Thursday, Mary Schapiro, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, told a committee of Congress the SEC was investigating the accounting treatment that helped mask MF Global's exposure to risky foreign sovereign debt.
