[ by Larry Goldfarb ]

The regulators may have finally figured out how to catch perpetrators and prevent financial indiscretions: interview and study firms and executives that have violated the law.  The National Futures Association has interviewed the executive team that ran Peregrine Financial Group Inc. in an effort to improve its oversight of the industry, which was heavily criticized in the wake of the broker's collapse last July.

Investigators, hired on behalf of the NFA, talked with most of Peregrine's senior ranks including:

• Russell Wasendorf Sr, Peregrine's Chief Executive currently jailed
• Russell Wasendorf Jr., Peregrine's former president and chief operating officer
• Brenda Cuypers, Peregrine's former chief financial officer,
• General Counsel Rebecca Wing,
• Susan O'Meara, who had been the firm's chief compliance officer

Questions for the former Peregrine executives centered on how the NFA can make its audits more comprehensive and finding broader ways to better supervise brokers that deal in futures and currencies.  Investigators also sought further details of Mr. Wasendorf Sr.'s scheme and Peregrine's own operations, the people said. It wasn't clear how the former Peregrine executives responded.

Peregrine slid into bankruptcy following revelations that Mr. Wasendorf Sr. illegally tapped client money to fund business ventures and pay regulatory costs for his firm over nearly 20 years. He pleaded guilty in September to charges of embezzlement, mail fraud and lying to regulators, and awaits sentencing.

For more information, please read [WSJ, 1/11/13].