New York Supreme Court Justice Melvin Schweitzer yesterday delayed granting former Merrill Lynch brokerage head Robert McCann a preemptive OK to start work with an unnamed financial-service company before 31 January 2010, the date when his former employer Bank of America says his non-compete period is up.

"They are becomining increasingly frustrated by my inability to go to work," Mr McCann told the court in a reference to the unnamed firm, according to a report by Dow Jones.

Bank of America acquired Merrill very early in January 2009.

People who claim to be familiar with the matter - and media reports going back a month - say the company that wants to put Mr McCann to work so badly is UBS. But opinions differ as to what job he's up for. Some see him replacing UBS Wealth Management Americas chief Martin Hoekstra; others peg him to lead UBS US retail brokerage under Hoekstra.

Observers are equally split as to why UBS is so keen to have Mr McCann that it's willing, it would seem, to have him enter into a legal dispute with Bank of America that could easily run past the late-January expiration of his presumptive no-work period.

"It doesn't make any sense, not for an appointment at this level," says Mark Elzweig of the New York-based executive-search firm Mark Elzweig Co. "Usually if someone of [McCann's] stature want's to wait three, four, five months to take an appointment - for whatever reason: to sit on the Riviera - that's what happens. That's the case with even lower-level positions."

For instance, it was about six months between James Gorman's departure from Merrill in the summer of 2005 to his arrival at Morgan Stanley as head of its private-client business late in February 2006. Mr Gorman is now Morgan Stanley's CEO.

But Allen Starkie, an owner of the New York-based search firm Knightsbridge Advisors, sees that "for the firm that the consensus of public opinion has [McCann] heading to, a hiatus of several months might create enormous hardship."

Starkie declined to elaborate, but a third headhunter - one who asked not to be identified - says that UBS is anxious to do damage control as it battles US authorities over its alleged role in helping thousands of its US clients evade US taxation, and sees new leadership in the Americas - specifically the US - as an essential ingredient. 

This headhunter says UBS may be in talks with other top executives to step in if Bank of America keeps Mr McCann out of action for much longer. 

Earlier this year, former Citigroup wealth-management chief Sallie Krawcheck was named as a potential rival to Mr McCann for UBS' affections, but she has since become head of wealth management for Bank of America in a mandate that encompasses Mr McCann's old position at Merrill and includes Bank of America's high-touch US Trust unit.

This leaves Peter Scaturro, head of Goldman Sach's Private Wealth Management group until November 2008 and a former CEO of US Trust as well as Citi's Private Bank, as a strong candidate, says the headhunter - even though Scaturro has never run a large brokerage.

So - despite talks out out-of-court talks, apparently encouraged by Justice Schweitzer - Mr McCann continues his legal battle against Bank of America.

In a nutshell, Mr McCann says he quit on 5 January 2009 as head of Merrill's retail business because he was stripped of authority and his 2008 year-end bonus after the merger with Bank of America, and that Bank of America initially accepted his resignation with the caveat that he stick around until early July 2009, after which he would, according to McCann himself, be able to work for another company.

By early February this year, however, McCann says that Bank of America changed its mind and fired him, denying him compensation and benefits and attempting -- so far successfully - to keep him out of the fray until February 2010.

In addition to being allowed to move now into what Mr McCann has told the court would be his "dream job," the plaintiff is looking for compensation from bank of America that amounts to around $18 million.

Bank of America replies that an early move by Mr McCann to a rival would do it serious damage because he carries about with him what amount to trade secrets.

That's another puzzler for Mr Elzweig. "The idea is that [McCann] knows so much about Merrill's platform - but you have high-level operations people moving all the time," he says. "They know a lot more, and take the knowledge with them, yes; but what can you do?"

Mr Elzweig adds: "The other notion is that [McCann] will be able to bring over a lot of producers, but again: how much do producers care about following some guy who's a hundred levels above them?"

UBS and Bank of America didn't respond to requests for comment.