Derivs - People and Markets

The Markets in Financial Instruments Directive could restrict investor choice in negotiating financial contracts on trading platforms and discourage the establishment of organized trading facilities, according to market officials.

The International Swaps and Derivatives Association has upgraded its online library of ISDA documents and definitional booklets.

The Royal Bank of Scotland is to begin downsizing in global equity derivatives and investor products as part of a reorganisation of the business, with cuts expected imminently in sales, trading and structuring.

David Gladstone, executive director and distressed debt and credit trader, and Kar Seng Yee, a credit trader at Morgan Stanley in Hong Kong, have left the firm.

Belgium’s Financial Services and Markets Authority is to wait on regulatory developments in Europe before pressing ahead with regulation covering the distribution of so-called complex structured products to retail investors.

Giovanni De Bustis Figarola and Nelson Farinha, equity derivatives volatility traders at Nomura in London, have left the firm.

Noel Freeman, an interest rates salesman at Tradeweb in San Francisco, has joined Nomura as an executive director, also in rates sales, in New York.

The Federal Court of Australia’s ruling against Standard & Poor’s in case over a synthetic securitization could spark cases in other common law countries.

Umair Raza Naqvi, an executive director in equity derivatives and equity-linked products for the Middle East and North Africa at Morgan Stanley in Dubai, has joined Wells Fargo to head the firm’s sovereign wealth fund business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Axel Kilian, global head of equity derivative sales and head of equity distribution for EMEA at UBS in London, has left as part of the cost reduction measures announced by the firm earlier this year.

China could soon allow onshore securities firms and brokerages to trade equity derivatives, such as total return swaps linked to the Chinese share market, according to lawyers in China.

UBS has begun cutting staff on equity derivative sales and trading desks as part of a cost reduction plan it announced earlier in the year.