Derivs - People and Markets

Lehman Brothers Special Financing is planning legal action to reclaim billions of dollars it says may have been improperly paid to collateralized debt obligation noteholders, its lawyers said in a U.S. bankruptcy court filing today.

HSBC came first in Greenwich Associates’ rankings of U.S. retail structured products market penetration, taking the top spot held by Barclays Capital in 2007, the last time Greenwich conducted the survey.

Silvan Herriger, the ex-head of index derivatives trading for Europe at BNP Paribas in London, has joined interdealer broker Vantage Capital Markets as global co-head of brokerage, a new role.

UBS has hired John Sillam as a senior equity derivatives correlation trader in Asia.

U.S. corporate end-users should be exempt from over-the-counter derivatives regulations because they need customized maturities and collateral arrangements, according to Scott Morrison, president of the National Association of Corporate Treasurers.

Some U.K. banks are refraining from hiring traders, salespeople and structurers before April 5 to avoid a tax on the stock portion of bonuses new recruits earned at their existing shops.

Daiwa Capital Markets has hired Edouard Hoepffner in a new role heading up structuring for Asia ex-Japan.

The Senate Agriculture Committee is reportedly moving forward apace with derivatives reform with members exchanging language for a draft bill, just as one is expected to be released imminently by Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), chairman of the Senate Banking Committee.

Barclays Capital has launched five-year structured notes, with a portion referencing three-month Euribor and another three-month Swiss franc Libor.

Stuart Pyott, the former head of European institutional equity derivatives sales at Citigroup in London, and Vipul Faujdar, a senior equity derivatives flow salesman also from Citi, are set to join Grupo Santander.

Barclays Capital is ending its brief foray into the cash and synthetic life settlements market. Philippe Hatstadt, the managing director heading the effort, has left the firm.

The group of 15 major over-the-counter dealers collectively cleared 93% of all eligible credit default swaps by Dec. 31, 2009, according to a draft of the March 1 letter to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The G15 set itself a collective target of 80% as of October.