George Schieren has left Merrill Lynch to join the New York-based securities litigation group at Clifford Chance, the global law firm.

Schieren, who has more than 20 years' experience of securities regulation, litigation and corporate governance at Merrill and the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC), was previously a senior vice president and associate general counsel at Merrill. He has been a member of the US bank's executive management committee since 2000.