CFTC legal counsel to depart

CFTC legal counsel to depart

Dan Berkovitz, general counsel at the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), is set to leave the agency at the end of March. Speaking to Energy Risk, he says he has no long-term plans and intends to take a break before deciding what to do next.

Berkovitz has been with the agency since June 2009 and worked on a number of regulatory initiatives, including implementing the Dodd-Frank Act. Berkovitz led the legal review of every proposed rule presented to the CFTC to implement the act and managed its defence in district and appellate courts. He also served as chairman Gary Gensler’s deputy on the Financial Stability Oversight Council – a systemic risk watchdog comprised of senior financial regulators, which is chaired by the US Treasury secretary.

Berkovitz has worked for the US federal government for 30 years. Prior to his role at the CFTC, he served as counsel to the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations and also held roles at the Department of Energy and the Maryland-based Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Sources say no decision has yet been made on his replacement.

Hetco hires top Tudor quant

Hess Energy Trading Company (Hetco), the trading arm of New York-based oil firm Hess, has hired Marcos López de Prado as head of quantitative trading and research. López de Prado has joined Hetco’s New York office and will report directly to the firm’s partners, sources say. He previously worked at Tudor Investment Corporation, a Connecticut-based hedge fund, where he was head of global quantitative research. Before that, he was the partner responsible for statistical arbitrage in the futures division of Chicago-based investment firm Peak6.

News of his appointment comes despite Hess’s plan to focus solely on exploration and production – a move that will mean divesting itself of Hetco by 2015, according to a March 4 investor presentation.

Koch swipes LNG expert from BNP

Koch Supply and Trading, the trading arm of Kansas-based Koch Industries, has appointed Siddharth Roy as a London-based corporate development director in its global natural gas and liquefied natural gas (LNG) business.

Previously, Roy worked as global head of LNG at BNP Paribas in London. Before joining the French investment bank in 2007, Roy was an executive director at Norwegian bank DNB. There, Roy worked on project finance, corporate finance and financial hedging in the LNG and transport sectors. He has also held project finance and structured finance roles at Connecticut-based GE Capital and Zürich-based engineering firm ABB.

Marex Spectron hires in Asia

Roger Quek, Arne Petter Kolderup and Akshay Mehta have joined the Singapore office of Marex Spectron, the London-based energy and commodity broker.

Quek has been appointed as executive vice-president and is responsible for the overall development of the firm’s Asian energy business. He joins from China International Capital Corporation, a Beijing-based investment bank, where he was head of global commodities and energy. Kolderup is taking on the role of head of coal derivatives for Asia, having previously worked at the Singapore branch of Freight Investor Services, a London-based commodities broker. He has also held trading and broking roles at Geneva-based commodity trader Mercuria, New York-based broker GFI and Oslo-based broker Imarex. Meanwhile, Mehta moves from Connecticut-based trader Gerald Metals as a physical coal broker. The trio join Marex Spectron as part of a push by the firm to expand its presence in Asian energy markets.

DME recruits products and services head

The Dubai Mercantile Exchange (DME) has appointed Michelle Zhang as head of products and services for Asia. Zhang will be based in the DME’s recently opened Singapore office. She joins after leaving her role as a senior manager covering metal products at Chicago-based CME Group, which owns a 50% stake in the DME. She previously held Singapore-based roles in commodity derivatives sales at Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation and Mizuho Corporate Bank. She reports to Owain Johnson, chief of products and services at the DME, who also joined from CME Group in June last year.

RBC hires metals head

Canadian investment bank Royal Bank of Canada Capital Markets has appointed Bruce Garner as head of metals. He will be based in New York and report to Bruce Macdonald, the bank’s head of commodities and electronic trading.

It comes after Garner left his role in Singapore as head of commodities for Standard Bank in November 2012. The bank subsequently appointed Jim Coupland and Mark Buncombe to replace Garner in January. Prior to Standard Bank, Garner worked for Deutsche Bank as head of commodities sales for Europe and the Americas.

APX-Endex demerges

As part of a plan revealed in September last year to sell its spot gas and derivatives business to Atlanta-based exchange Ice, Amsterdam-based exchange APX-Endex split into two separate businesses on March 1.

The newly created APX Group will focus on spot power trading and is led by Bert den Ouden, former chief executive of APX-Endex. Meanwhile, James Matthys-Donnadieu, the chief executive of APX’s Belgian power exchange Belpex, becomes chief operations officer (COO) at the firm.

The other part of the business will be known as Endex Trading until the merger with Ice is completed – something that still requires approval from Dutch authorities. Pieter Schuurs, who was formerly COO at APX-Endex, has been made managing director of the unit. Lucas Schmeddes, who was previously the chief financial officer of APX-Endex, has also been appointed as a managing director.

EOX Holdings appoints Barbagallo as COO

EOX Holdings, a subsidiary of Houston- and New York-based over-the-counter energy derivatives broker OTC Global Holdings, has hired Leslie Barbagallo as chief operating officer.

Barbagallo was previously chief operating officer for energy and commodities at Pennsylvania-based risk vendor SunGard. Before leaving SunGard in 2012, Barbagallo led the market data and energy trading and risk management businesses. She previously served as principal and chief operating officer at RLW Analytics – a provider of data and consulting services to utilities and energy companies that is now part of Dutch energy consultancy DNV Kema. Prior to that, she worked for four years at Houston-based technology vendor OpenLink as a director for financial services.

At EOX, Barbagallo is tasked with expanding the availability of the firm’s market data through its EOXLive trading platform. She reports to Javier Loya and Joe Kelly, the chief executive and president of OTC Global Holdings, respectively.

She joins EOX after launching Pom Data, Trading and Risk, a New York-based consultancy firm, in October 2012.

Calpine swipes CRO from BP

Ken Robinson, the former chief risk officer (CRO) for oil major BP’s North American gas and power business, has been appointed CRO of Houston-based power generator Calpine. Robinson’s former job at BP has been taken by Gary Taylor, who previously served as head of market risk for North American gas and power.

During his five-and-a-half-year tenure at BP, Robinson held several roles in risk management, covering market, credit and operational risk. Prior to BP, Robinson served as CRO for El Paso, a Houston-based gas producer that is now part of Kinder Morgan. He also served as vice-president of risk management at Dallas-based utility TXU Energy.

Taylor joined BP in 2010, having previously served as a director in the financial risk management consulting division in the US arm of consultancy firm KPMG. He also worked for Koch Capital Markets – a division of Kansas-based industrial firm Koch Industries – and spent five years working in weather trading and risk controls at Houston-based energy firm Enron.

Goldman Sachs loses copper trader

David Freeland, a London-based copper trader at Goldman Sachs, has left the bank. It comes just over a year after Freeland joined the firm’s London office to help ramp up its presence in physical metals. He previously worked as a senior metals trader at Geneva-based commodity trading house Trafigura. Goldman Sachs declined to comment on Freeland’s departure.