A key financial regulator 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, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday. Investigators working on behalf of the National Futures Association (NFA) talked with most of Peregrine's senior ranks—including jailed founder and Chief Executive Russell Wasendorf Sr.—over the past month. The Chicago-based NFA drew scrutiny from investors and policy makers after the revelations of fraud at Peregrine. Directors of the industry-funded agency, which federal futures market regulators depend upon for day-to-day policing of brokers, last summer ordered an external review of its practices while putting on hold potential management changes and bonus payments to top officials.
