Two former Morgan Stanley financial advisers have been sued by regulators over a fraudulent market timing scheme that produced $4.8bn (€3.3bn) worth of trades in less than two years.

The Securities and Exchange Commission, which filed the lawsuit in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, alleges that Darryl Goldstein and Christopher O'Donnell defrauded 50 mutual fund companies and their shareholders by violating market timing restrictions imposed by the funds between January 2002 and August 2003.