David Aufhauser, a lawyer at UBS (UBS) who has become entangled in the scandal surrounding the collapse of the Auction Rate Security (ARS) market, has resigned. Aufhaser was general counsel of the Swiss investment bank in the U.S and is alleged by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to have acted on inside information and sold his stake in ARS just before the market collapsed.
No word yet on whether he resigned on principle or was quietly canned. The latter would actually reflect badly on UBS, because it would seem an admission that Cuomo's allegations have merit.
WSJ:
UBS AG's chief executive officer Marcel Rohner and Jerker Johansson, Chairman and CEO of UBS's investment bank, said in a memo posted on UBS's internal Web site Monday that they accepted Mr. Aufhauser's resignation, said a person familiar with the matter. A UBS spokeswoman confirmed the departure.
Mr. Aufhauser has not been charged with any wrongdoing. In the New York attorney's complaint, he was described as selling personal holdings of auction-rate securities at a time when the firm was trying to fix problems in the market.
The UBS spokeswoman reiterated that "the New York attorney general did not identify the names of the executives in his complaint, and we decline to do so."
