FastMatch unveils board changes, replaces ex-directors Drew Niv and William Ahdout

The effects of yesterday’s announcement about the regulatory measures against FXCM Inc (NASDAQ:FXCM), its CEO Drew Niv and senior Managing Director William Ahdout are starting to pile up, as FastMatch, in which FXCM owns a stake, has just unveiled board changes.

The financial technology company has just announced that former directors Drew Niv and William Ahdout are replaced by Brian Friedman, President, and Jimmy Hallac, Managing Director, of Leucadia National Corp. (NYSE:LUK). Leucadia is known as the company that, back in January 2015, extended a $300 million lifeline to FXCM, which was struggling with the heavyweight of negative client balances following the “Black Swan” event on January 15, 2015.

We still await Leucadia’s reaction concerning the regulatory measures against FXCM and the exit of the company from the US retail FX market. The broker was sanctioned for trading against customers, whilst all the while maintaining that a no dealing desk model was in place.

Today’s announcement by FastMatch puts the stress on the independency of the firm from FXCM.

“FastMatch develops and operates trading platforms concentrating on both the sell-side and buy-side market segments. FXCM is a passive minority owner of FastMatch. FastMatch operates as a completely independent entity of FXCM with no operational dependencies between two firms”, the company states in its press release.

This is in tune with FinanceFeeds’ view, which suggests that FastMatch will seek to distance itself from the broker and may even try to remove FXCM from its commercial structure, as what has now transpired at FXCM is completely unaligned with FastMatch’s ethos.

Meanwhile, the number of law firms willing to represent disgruntled FXCM investors is rising. Earlier today, FinanceFeeds reported that New York investor rights lawyer Rosen Law Firm is setting the ground for a class action lawsuit against the broker.