Financial Regulatory Forum

   BOSTON, Nov 6 (Reuters) – The Securities and Exchange Commission has hired former hedge fund executive Richard Bookstaber and two other senior officials to work in a newly created unit designed to identify risks in financial markets.

Bookstaber, who held top positions at prominent hedge funds including Moore Capital Management and has written widely about risk management, will be a senior policy adviser to Henry Hu, director of the SEC’s Division of Risk, Strategy and Financial Innovation.

The SEC also hired Adam Glass, the founder of law firm Linklaters LLP’s structured finance and derivatives practice, and Bruce Kraus, a lawyer at law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP.

The moves come a year after investment bank Lehman Brothers collapsed and as the agency is trying to hire people who have worked at hedge funds and at investment banks to help it keep closer tabs on developing risks in financial markets.

Bookstaber published “A Demon of our own Design,” in 2007 where he wrote that recent financial innovations have made markets less instead of more stable.

“Adam, Bruce and Rick bring energy, expertise and creativity,” Hu said, adding that the men will be important in “this Division’s efforts to offer analysis that integrates economic, finance and legal disciplines, with full appreciation of the complexities of today’s world.”

(Reporting by Svea Herbst-Bayliss; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)

 ((Svea.Herbst@Reuters.com +1 617 856 4331; Reuters Messaging: svea.herbst.reuters.com@reuters.net))