Nicholas J. Weir

In 1986, after returning to the United States, Mr. Weir’s responsibilities continued to involve commodity trading, foreign exchange, and interest rate trading and brokerage activity as the direct supervisor of all account executives in Cargill Investor Services Regional Office in Chicago, where he served as Trading Manager. Mr. Weir was also responsible for managing securities, commodity, foreign exchange and interest rate trading relationships with a variety of Introducing Brokers, Commodity Trading Advisors, Investment Advisors, and Non-Clearing Futures Commission Merchants as the Trading Manager of the Managed Asset Group and the Portfolio Diversification Group.

Mr. Weir is currently qualified, registered and licensed as a Registered Representative of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (“FINRA”), an Associated Person of the National Futures Association (“NFA”) and is qualified to serve as a Retail Foreign Exchange Dealer and Investment Banker having successfully passed the series 3, 7, 34, 79, 63 and Securities Industry Essential (“SIE”) examinations.

From the late 1980s to date, Mr. Weir has been involved in consulting in securities, commodity, and foreign exchange related matters: first as Manager and then Partner of Coopers and Lybrand (now PricewaterhouseCoopers) and later as an owner and principal of Chicago Partners. He was also one of the owners and a principal of CP Risk Management, LLC, a subsidiary of Chicago Partners, which was engaged in consulting with investment and commercial banks, trading companies, insurance companies, stock and commodity exchanges, pension plans, and a variety of other sophisticated financial entities. Mr. Weir regularly advises these clients on trading and financial risk management issues including securities, commodities, foreign exchange, and derivative product trading and investment issues. Mr. Weir has had extensive experience in consulting related to allegations of market and price manipulation, anticompetitive trading practices and antitrust violations and spoofing in a variety of securities and financial markets.

Chicago Partners was acquired by Navigant Consulting, a public consulting company, and became Navigant Economics. Parts of Navigant Economics were later acquired by Charles River Associates, Inc., (“CRAI”) where Mr. Weir is currently employed by CRAI as a Vice President.

Mr. Weir is currently serving on the Board of Governors: University of St. Thomas Law School, Minneapolis, MN. He served for several years on the Board of Directors of the Futures Industry Association, Chicago Division. He serves as an arbitrator for the National Futures Association and FINRA. He has testified in forums of the SEC, CFTC, NASD, NFA, CBOT, CME, NYSE, and in a variety of federal courts, and his opinion has been sought in expert testimony in a number of substantial matters in the area of commodities, securities and foreign exchange trading custom and practice, and damages, including the notable matters of Henryk De Kwiatkowski v. Bear Stearns (a landmark case involving duties in the foreign exchange market) and Minmetals v. Lehman Brothers.