Morgan Stanley has ordered an internal lawyer to shadow the unit entangled in a federal investigation into block trading, underscoring the gravity of the probe and the steps the lender is taking to beef up supervision.
The Wall Street bank has embedded one of its lawyers to sit on its US equity syndicate desk to supervise bankers and answer their legal questions, according to people briefed on the arrangement.
The decision to install the lawyer was made after Morgan Stanley placed Pawan Passi, head of the US equity syndicate desk, on leave last year, the people added.
It is the latest example of the fallout from the investigations by the Department of Justice and Securities and Exchange Commission into Morgan Stanley’s block trading business, which gathered momentum after the collapse last year of Bill Hwang’s Archegos Capital Management.
Block trades are bulk sales of shares executed by an investment bank,