UBS Says Equities Co-Heads Gouws, Bouhara Resign Over Bank’s Trading Loss

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-05/ubs-says-equities-co-heads-gouws-bouhara-resign-over-unauthorized-trading.html

By Elena Logutenkova and Ambereen Choudhury
Bloomberg
Oct 6, 2011

UBS AG (UBSN), Switzerland’s biggest bank, said Francois Gouws and 
Yassine Bouhara resigned as co-heads of global equities following last 
month’s $2.3 billion loss from unauthorized trading.

“Their resignations come as they assume overall responsibility for the 
effective management of the equities business,” the Zurich-based bank 
said in an e-mailed statement yesterday. Mike Stewart, hired from Bank 
of America Corp. in July, will become the sole head of equities, UBS 
said.

Sergio Ermotti, who replaced Oswald Gruebel as interim chief executive 
officer last month, is trying to bolster investor confidence in a bank 
that less than two months ago Gruebel said had “one of the best” 
risk-management units in the industry. Ermotti said in a memo to 
employees yesterday that while the bank’s internal systems had detected 
“unauthorized or unexplained” activity, it wasn’t “sufficiently” probed 
and controls weren’t enforced.

“Serious lapses of potentially both risk management and leadership have 
occurred, and somebody must be held responsible,” said Chris Roebuck, a 
visiting professor at the Cass Business school in London. “To not to 
have taken rapid action would have been perceived both by investors, 
regulators and the market in itself a further leadership failure.”

[...]

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