By Herbert Lash
NEW YORK, Nov 18 (Reuters) - Barclays Plc said onTuesday it hired a former senior executive at the New York StockExchange to help with the bank's electronic trading, an area inwhich it was accused of fraud by the New York attorney generalin a pending lawsuit.
The appointment of Joe Mecane, formerly executive vicepresident and head of U.S. equities at NYSE, along with thehiring in July of Christine Sandler, a senior sales executivefrom a NYSE affiliate, reaffirms Barclays' commitment to itselectronic trading platform, several analysts said.
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman in June saidBarclays misled clients by not protecting them from "predatory"high-frequency traders in its "dark pool," a trading venue knownas LX, despite the bank's assurances it was doing so.
Trading volume in Barclays' dark pool slumped after thelawsuit, with LX falling about 10 rungs in alternative tradingsystem rankings, but now appears to have stabilized, accordingto data from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.
Mecane will help Barclays develop its electronic productofferings, with a focus on equities and credit markets, the banksaid in a statement. Sandler was hired as a managing directorand head of equities client origination in the Americas.
"To me it makes sense. Having new personnel with blue chipreputations come in to say 'We're not part of the old guard andwouldn't have come here if it wasn't clean' adds credibility,"said Joe Gawronski, president and chief operating officer ofRosenblatt Securities.
Mecane and Sandler will help Barclays re-establish its tieswith both investors and other brokers as it offers services suchas research and access to initial public offerings, he said.
"You can't boycott Barclays forever if you're on thebuy-side. You can avoid the dark pool and use other banks' algosfor a time," Gawronski said, but "if they aggressively pushfolks back to the electronic product, the flow should start tomigrate back over time."
(Reporting by Herbert Lash; editing by Andrew Hay)