Day One
You are the Head of Securities Compliance at Big Bank.
At 17.30 on Monday you return to the office from an all day conference. You received an email at 17.24 from one of your junior colleagues, Chris Newby who has just left the office for a holiday. The email reads as follows:
Mann only joined Big Bank a year ago and has been consistently posting book profits higher than many of his colleagues on the prop desk. He is responsible for trading European equities. Many of his positions are in companies with very low liquidity, and he seems to make market beating returns in these stocks.
As alluded to by Newby this is not the first issue that has arisen with Mann's prop book, and because of this you have some reservations about the trade. You decide to have a look at Mann's instant messaging communications for the last 24 hours. You notice a message sent from another market participant at 10.39 stating:
"What the hell are you doing, you’re not meant to be hitting me, I’m going to have to cancel that”.
There is a further message at 11.04 from the same person stating:
"Where are you? I’ve had to withdraw the cancel".
