Barclays Wealth has appointed Morgan Stanley's David Hart to the newly-created role of head of litigation, as the bank continues the restructuring of its in-house litigation functions.

Hart, who joined the bank last month (17 January), will work closely with Barclays Wealth general counsel Duncan Perry.

He joined directly from Morgan Stanley, where he served as an executive director in the in-house litigation team. Before that he was an associate in the litigation team at magic circle firm Allen & Overy, before joining Morgan Stanley in 2004.

The news comes after a restructuring at Barclays last month which will see litigation now operate as a single practice area across the bank's divisions. This, according to the bank, will provide "a consistent application of policy and best practice to litigation and investigations."

The restructuring saw Barclays merge its in-house litigation functions, meaning that each of Barclays' litigation teams in Global Retail Banking (GRB), Barclays Capital (BarCap) and Barclays Wealth will now report into Jonathan Peddie as managing director of group litigation and special investigations.

Peddie took up the newly-created role after 18 months as director of litigation and special investigations for Barclays GRB.

Last year also saw the merger of BarCap and Barclays Corporate's in-house litigation functions, with Barclays GRB litigation head Stephanie Pagni taking up a new role leading the merged team.