Publicity Looms as PwC, MF Global Go To Trial in New YorkPublicity Looms as PwC, MF Global Go To Trial in New York
PwC's snafu at the Academy Awards made for a hard time fielding a jury.
March 6, 2017

(Adds jury being selected, details)
By Jonathan Stempel
NEW YORK, March 6 (Reuters) - Publicity about both therecent Academy Awards and Wall Street hung over a Manhattancourtroom on Monday as lawyers struggled to find jurors todecide whether PricewaterhouseCoopers helped cause the collapseof MF Global Holdings Ltd, a commodity brokerage once headed byformer New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine.
MF Global's bankruptcy plan administrator is seeking roughly$3 billion in damages, accusing PwC of negligence for approvingan accounting method that let Corzine, who is also a formerGoldman Sachs co-chairman and Democratic U.S. senator,make a huge, ill-fated wager on European sovereign debt.
PwC plans to argue its accounting advice was reasonable, andthat decisions by Corzine and others at MF Global led to thecompany's October 2011 bankruptcy.
It took nearly all day to seat a five-woman, five-man juryon Monday for the expected five-week trial, where Corzine isexpected to testify. Opening statements are expected onTuesday.
The jury was chosen eight days after the Academy Awardsfiasco when a PwC accountant mistakenly handed over the wrongenvelope for Best Picture award to the actor Warren Beatty, whothen wrongly said that "La La Land" rather than "Moonlight" wonthe Oscar. PwC later apologized.
Before prospective jurors arrived, U.S. District JudgeVictor Marrero admonished lawyers to refrain from mentioning theblunder, which PwC has said is unrelated to the case.
"I gave no authority to make any reference, direct orindirect, to any Hollywood production," he said.
Later, Marrero dismissed at least four prospective jurorsafter asking if they had heard about PwC.
The judge and lawyers also questioned many prospectivejurors behind closed doors about what they knew about Corzine.
In January, Corzine agreed to pay a $5 million civil fine tosettle a U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission lawsuit overMF Global's demise. He has never been accused offraud or intentional misconduct related to MF Global.
The MF Global administrator is expected to argue thatinvestors were spooked by Corzine's $6.3 billion bet on Europeansovereign debt, which with a large quarterly loss, credit ratingdowngrades and margin calls fueled the brokerage's rapid descentinto Chapter 11.
MF Global's collapse sparked federal probes, after itemerged that $1.6 billion of customer funds was missing and thecompany improperly used customer money to shore up liquidity.The money was later recovered.
PwC in April 2015 reached a $65 million settlement withformer MF Global shareholders and bondholders but deniedwrongdoing. (Reporting By Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by NoeleenWalder and Cynthia Osterman)
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