MF Global Holdings trustee, James Giddens, is working to recover $700 million (£446.6 million) of client funds held by the broker's UK affiliate for U.S. customers that were trading in overseas markets.  MF Global UK holds $70mn in cash and $630mn in T-Bills. A spokesman for Giddens later clarified that the U.K. funds have nothing to do with the estimated $1.2 billion that's believed to be missing from U.S. customer accounts.   The trustee had known about these funds - so it's not new-found money.  Trustee Giddens, nevertheless, expects it will difficult to collect the funds from U.K. trustee KPMG.

"We are going to claim that those are the assets of our customers but we don't have control over that money. We'll pursue them vigorously but it's been our experience that we may not get that money back. The recovery of those assets may take some time and we may not get that back. Any money that we don't get back would translate into a shortfall for our customers."

CFTC Commissioner Jill Sommers last week told Reuters in an interview that the CFTC's investigation was "far enough along the trail" to be able to determine where customer money went. For further details, go to:  [CNBC.com, 12/21/11].