Alison Frankel-

In April 2011, Morgan Stanley paid $32 million to resolve a Securities and Exchange Commission case against Joseph “Chip” Skowron, the Morgan Stanley hedge fund manager who pled guilty to insider trading charges in August 2011. Skowron, who trained as a physician, ran a healthcare hedge fund called FrontPoint, which Morgan Stanley acquired in 2006. Over the next four years, until he was fired in December 2010, Skowron earned more than $32 million from Morgan Stanley, which also fronted almost $5 million in legal fees to defend its erstwhile trading star before he finally admitted his guilt.

Morgan Stanley believes that Skowron owes the bank all of that money: the legal fees, the compensation and the cost of the SEC settlement. In an unusual complaint filed in federal court in Manhattan on Oct. 31 (but first disclosed Nov. 9), Morgan Stanley’s lawyers at Marino, Tortorella & Boyle asserted that Skowron was a faithless employee who defrauded Morgan Stanley, breaching his employment contract and his fiduciary duty. That misconduct, the bank argued, entitle Morgan Stanley to recover from Skowron every penny that his insider trading cost the bank.

[REUTERS On The Case]

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