Although it is too early predict the fate of the six traders charged by the U.K.’s Securities Fraud Office (SFO) for allegedly manipulating Euribor, the unexpectedly long jail sentence of Tom Hayes in a similar case could set a precedent if they are found guilty. Hayes is a former UBS and Citigroup derivatives trader who… Read More >>
Ops Gets on the Blockchain Revolution Bus
Bitcoin, a so-called crypto-currency, may fade before anyone really understands what it was or how it could actually have prevailed in financial services. However, out of Bitcoin’s ashes has risen the humbly named Blockchain technology. The distributed ledger technology that has been propping up Bitcoin has come to the attention of major industry players. This… Read More >>
Barclays Proposes ‘Ice Breaker’ $94M Settlement for Euribor Case
Barclays has stepped forward and proposed a potentially trend-setting $94 million settlement with U.S. authorities over the antitrust case brought against it and 10 other banks over allegations they commandeered the European Interbank Offered Rate (Euribor) to their advantage. This proposed settlement for Sullivan et al v Barclays Plc, case number 13-02811, is before Judge… Read More >>
UBS Shuffles Execs in Shift to Wealth Management
Swiss banking giant UBS Group is reshuffling the members of its Group Executive Board (GEB), board of directors (BoD), and senior management team for next year, and amid the changes Robert J. McCann will step down from his roles as president of UBS Americas and Wealth Management Americas (WMA) to be replaced by Tom Naratil,… Read More >>
The SEC’s ‘Broken Windows’ Policy
Given some of the recent actions by the SEC, it’s reasonable to ask if the regulator may be enforcing a kind of “broken windows policing” effort. When put into practice, the broken windows theory as applied to non-Wall Street crime by police officers involves acting upon “small crimes such as vandalism, public drinking, and toll-jumping,”… Read More >>
UBS to Pay $19.5M Penalty for Structured Note Omissions
UBS will be paying $19.5 million to the SEC to settle charges that it “made false or misleading statements and omissions” when offering materials to U.S. investors who were sold structured notes tied to a proprietary foreign exchange trading strategy, say SEC officials. The SEC is not alleging that UBS officials intended to defraud investors… Read More >>
The Fed Hits Six Banks with Record Fines
The Federal Reserve has imposed $1.8 billion in fines, “among the largest ever assessed,” against UBS, Barclays Bank, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase & Co., the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Bank of America Corp. (BofA) for what Fed officials call “their unsafe and unsound practices in the foreign exchange (FX) markets.” The dollar amounts for… Read More >>
SEFs Exchange Fire at SEFCON V
The claws came out at Wednesday’s SEFCON V conference as panelists representing swap execution facilities (SEFs) run by Bloomberg and UBS exchanged a series of playful jabs at one another, underscoring the rough-and-tumble reality of intense competition in a market that’s just getting off the ground. Responding to a question about the merits of the… Read More >>
RJO Hires from UBS for UK Post
Futures brokerage and clearing firm R.J. O’Brien & Associates (RJO), has appointed Paul Goodhew as senior vice president and head of global markets at its London-based R.J. O’Brien (UK) Ltd. affiliate, according to a company statement. Most recently, Goodhew worked as an executive director UBS. In his new role, Goodhew will focus on “expanding the… Read More >>
UBS Fills Top Posts as Former HedgeCo Networks Exec Joins I.A. Englander
UBS Fills Two Top Posts William Vereker will leave Nomura and join the investment bank division of UBS on June 1 as head of corporate client solutions, EMEA. Also starting in June, Oliver Bussmann will be moving to UBS from enterprise software provider SAP to become group chief information officer (CIO), say officials.The hiring of… Read More >>
