神奇小子拯救明富環球落難客戶

????詹姆斯?庫圖拉斯插手這樁位居美國有史以來最大破產案之列的官司時，他的法律經驗幾乎為零。

????“出席破產法庭的第一天，我看到了法官臉上的那副表情，但我不能怪他，”他說?！捌飘a法庭是一個富人俱樂部，四周都是老頭，我站在那里顯得很突兀了。老實說，刮了胡子我看起來也就12歲左右?！?/p>

????然而，在如今已解散的期貨經紀公司明富環球（MF Global）的前客戶中，30歲的庫圖拉斯或許是少數幾位敢于公開抗議他們目前所受待遇的“勇士”之一。自10月31日申請破產以來，明富環球的麻煩事就接踵而至。首當其沖的問題是，該公司丟失了估計達10多億美元的客戶資金。從普通的農民、大農場主，到對沖基金，這筆損失直接導致期貨市場上這些最活躍的參與者錢包縮水。

????庫圖拉斯是成立3年的大宗商品基金臺風資本管理公司（Typhon Capital Management）的首席執行官。他是無意中闖進這場法庭大戲的。明富環球申請破產后不久，由庫圖拉斯創辦的這家位于芝加哥的公司——其大部分業務都在期貨市場上進行——發現，在它管理的7千萬美元資金中，有5,500萬已經被拖入破產程序。這太出人意料了，因為根據法律，客戶資金應該與經紀公司的自有資產完全隔離。但明富環球并沒有這樣做。到了這時候，庫圖拉斯和明富環球成千上萬的其他客戶才猛然意識到大事不妙。

????“我的目標真的很簡單：把大家的錢要回來，”他說?！岸椅艺J為，我們成功的幾率非常高?！?1月初，庫圖拉斯連同芝加哥另一位期貨交易商、田納西州共和黨眾議員菲爾?羅伊博士的兒子約翰?羅伊共同創辦了為明富環球前客戶復雜的法律利益代言的草根組織——大宗商品客戶聯盟（Commodity Customer Coalition）。短短幾周的時間，這個組織就聚集了8,000多位成員，并收到了數萬美元的捐款。它憑借一己之力證明：足夠多的人聚集在一起就可以改變一樁案值數十億美元的破產案的進程。

????但有一個問題。盡管庫圖拉斯是一位受過專門培訓的律師【他是西北大學法學院（Northwestern Law）2006界畢業生】，但他的法律經驗僅限于一樁標的額為8,000美元的公益性官司?！拔覐奈从羞^當執業律師的打算，”庫圖拉斯說。他的父親是一位會計師，母親是一名家庭主婦?！拔矣憛捖蓭熯@個行當。我上法學院只是為了避免以后不被這些家伙愚弄罷了?！?/p>

????James Koutoulas walked into one of the worst bankruptcies in U.S. history with almost zero legal experience.

????"When I got up the first day in bankruptcy court and saw the look on the judge's face, I couldn't blame him," he says. "Bankruptcy court is a rich man's club where everyone is old, so I stood out. Honestly, when I'm shaved, I look like I'm about 12."

????Yet Koutoulas, 30, may be one of the only former customers of MF Global, the now-defunct futures brokerage house, with the gumption to publicly object to the way they are being treated. Since filing for bankruptcy Oct. 31, MF Global's woes have rapidly piled up – chief among them losing an estimated $1 billion-plus of customer funds. The loss directly crimped the wallets of some of the futures market's most active participants, from small-time farmers to ranchers to hedge funds.

????Koutoulas, chief executive of three-year-old commodities fund Typhon Capital Management, stumbled into the courtroom drama accidentally. His Chicago firm, which conducts the bulk of its business in the futures market, discovered shortly after MF Global's bankruptcy that $55 million of its $70 million under management had been dragged into the proceedings. This was a surprise, because, by law, customer funds are supposed to be kept completely segregated from a brokerage firm's own assets. That wasn't the case with MF Global. For Koutoulas and tens of thousands of other MF customers, it was a rude awakening.

????"My goal is real simple: getting everybody's money back," he says. "And I think we have a very high likelihood of doing just that." In early November, Koutoulas, along with fellow Chicago futures trader, John Roe – son of Tennessee Republican congressman Dr. Phil Roe – founded the Commodity Customer Coalition, a grassroots group that seeks to represent the complex legal interests of MF Global's former clients. In the space of just a few weeks, the group has amassed more than 8,000 members, received tens of thousands of dollars of donations and singlehandedly proven that enough people, when banded together, can change the course of a multibillion-dollar bankruptcy.

????But there's a catch. While Koutoulas is a trained lawyer who graduated from Northwestern Law in 2006, his legal experience extends no further than a one-time $8,000 pro bono case. "I never wanted to practice law," says Koutoulas, whose father was an accountant and mother a homemaker. "I hate lawyers. I only went to law school to specifically avoid getting screwed by them."