THE New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) has asked one of the most notorious corporate defence lawyers in America to lead an investigation into the way Dick Grasso, its former chief executive, and other senior staff were paid.
Dan Webb, a former federal prosecutor with a reputation of celebrity proportions, is understood to be in talks with John Reed, the interim chairman of the NYSE, about leading the investigation.

Mr Webb shot to fame when he defended Microsoft in its antitrust case with US competition regulators. He later took on the high-profile divorce proceedings of Jack Welch, the former chief executive of General Electric.

The NYSE interim chairman, who is a friend of Mr Webb, is determined to clean up the exchange’s image after it was revealed that Mr Grasso had been awarded a pay deal worth $187 million (£111.5 million) while he was chief executive.

Two other senior directors of the NYSE, Robert Britz and Catherine Kinney, who are joint chief operating officers, recently revealed that they too were awarded multimillion-dollar pay deals under Mr Grasso’s reign.

Mr Grasso has since resigned from the NYSE and handed back some $48 million of his pay and bonus deal. Mr Britz and Ms Kinney are still employed by the exchange.

Mr Webb, 58, a partner at the Chicago law firm of Winston & Strawn, will examine the board’s decisions and potential conflicts of interest that led to Mr Grasso being awarded such a large sum.