Teflon-coated ex-head of compliance at Barclays has come unstuck

Bad news: the poster boy for big transatlantic career moves, enabling senior bank staff to escape accusations of culpability on their own continent, has failed to endure.

Stephen Morse, the ex-head of compliance at Barclays Capital, has left his new job at TD Bank in Toronto. His PA confirmed his departure, saying that Morse left "last week."

For anyone with a poor memory for names and events, Morse was the head of compliance at Barclays Capital when the LIBOR machinations which brought Bob Diamond down were perpetrated. During his testimony before the Treasury Select Committee in July 2012, ex-Barclays COO Jerry Del Missier implicated Morse, claiming that he'd been informed of inappropriate requests to lower LIBOR but hadn't acted upon them. Barclays' subsequent settlement agreement didn't mention Morse by name, but it did criticize the shortcomings of the department he headed.

None of this hugely mattered to Morse, however. He quit Barclays in late 2011 - months before the scandal surfaced - and became global head of compliance for TD, based in Toronto.

Now Morse has moved on again. TD didn't immediately return a request to comment on his departure, but we understand that he left to spend more time with his family. That may make sense- as Hector Sants' exhaustion has highlighted, compliance isn't necessarily a nice easy job. A PwC poll of senior compliance managers in the asset management industry found that 80% work 11-12 hour days at least. In banking, hours are likely to be longer still.