Derivs - People and Markets

Morgan Stanley has denied any wrongdoing following a suit brought by 18 Singapore investors who alleged the firm failed to disclose it was counterparty to the synthetic collateralized debt obligations it sold them.

Risk management adviser Chatham Financial has published a series of guides on new regulations that will affect derivatives end users.

Hector Cortes, a managing director in fixed income institutional sales at Nomura, has left the firm within the last few weeks.

The European Securities and Markets Authority along with national regulators should be given the appropriate resources and powers to enforce the requirements outlined in the updated Markets in Financial Instruments Directive, according to Jean-Pierre Jouyet, chairman of the Autorité des Marchés Financiers.

Nomura has named Steven Downey as co-head of derivatives with Makram Fares and head of equities trading for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, as first reported by Derivatives Intelligence.

Barclays Capital in Hong Kong has hired Abhijeet Neogy, an ex-equity derivatives trader at Bank of America-Merrill Lynch in New York.

Michael Clarke, formerly global head of counterparty risk management at UBS in New York, is set to join Goldman Sachs in a similar role.

New York hedge fund Brigade Capital Management, which is headed by Donald Ellis Morgan, has brought on Thadeus Strobach, a former managing director of credit strategy who cover credit derivatives at the Royal Bank of Scotland in New York.

Daiwa Securities Group is selling its synthetic prime brokerage to Bank of Nova Scotia as its restructures its overseas businesses.

Bennett Grau and Mark Mallon, who most recently worked as proprietary traders at Goldman Sachs, are teaming up with Marc Mezvinsky, a former colleague and son-in-law of former President Bill Clinton, to establish Eaglevale Partners, a hedge fund set to launch in the first half of next year.

JPMorgan Chase has launched a prime custody service to European client.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority jointly issued a risk alert and regulatory notice on broker-dealer branch inspections, and offered suggestions to help securities industry firms better perform them.