Financial Regulatory &
Compliance

Greenberg Traurig’s Financial Regulatory and Compliance Group brings together attorneys from offices and practices worldwide to assist financial services firms of all types and sizes, as well as their holding companies, and investors and vendors to those firms. We provide guidance on national and global regulatory, legislative, litigation, supervisory, licensing, compliance, corporate, and governance matters.

With offices in Washington, D.C. and important state capitals, we consult regularly with staff from the: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), Federal Reserve, U.S. Department of the Treasury, Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), Commodities Futures and Tradition Commission (CFTC), as well as state financial institution regulators, securities agencies, and state attorneys general. With our global reach, we additionally regularly consult with European, Latin American, and Asian financial regulators. We are able to efficiently provide our clients with practical strategies to help meet their domestic and global legal and regulatory needs.

 Our Financial Services Blog

Greenberg Traurig’s Financial Services Observer monitors and reports on news, legal developments, litigation, and legislative actions affecting the financial services industry. Written by members of Greenberg Traurig’s Financial Regulatory and Compliance Group, this blog is designed to help in-house counsel and industry executives stay abreast of major developments affecting their industry. 

Investment Companies, Private Funds, and Investment Advisers

We serve as counsel to investment companies, to directors of investment companies, and to advisers and other service providers of investment companies. We advise on the formation of investment companies, board supervision, filings, inspections, mergers and acquisitions of registrants, and suitable compliance programs.

We represent private funds exempt from registration, providing advice on domestic and offshore formation, offering of securities in the U.S., structuring and operation of compliance programs, expanding supervision and inspections by regulators, and filings mandated for advisers to private funds. We advise clients in regard to the legal aspects of the increasing interest of the SEC in unregistered private funds, including the marketing and operations of funds.

We represent investment advisers, including both those that act as advisers to funds and advisory firms engaged in the management of individual accounts of their customers. We advise on the fiduciary duties of advisers, identify industry best practices, address SEC compliance issues affecting advisers, counsel clients on operational procedures and practices, assist with mock audits, and help clients respond effectively to regulatory examinations. While we counsel advisers who are subject to SEC regulation, we also guide firms in dealing with expanded state regulation of advisers.

We also advise entities that seek guidance concerning how to operate their non-fund businesses without registration or supervision as regulated entities based on exclusions or exemptions from such registration and regulation. This is an area that can be critical to the success of a non- investment company business and requires a careful analysis of sensitive regulatory concerns.

Broker-Dealer Regulation and Compliance

Greenberg Traurig counsels broker-dealers, transfer agents, securities exchanges, alternative trading systems, municipal securities dealers, and municipal advisors in a wide range of regulatory and compliance matters, including Dodd-Frank and JOBS Act issues, Exchange Act issues, Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB) matters, and pay-to-play business restrictions, among others. We also conduct internal inves- tigations and full-scale compliance reviews. We work closely with our clients to develop and update their compliance programs, as well as their anti-money laundering and internal control policies and procedures.

Greenberg Traurig advises clients throughout the lifecycle of a securities industry participant, from creation through an SRO new membership application to sale or disposal of assets. We help our clients avoid unwarranted regulatory scrutiny and enforcement, and defend when investigations or actions are brought by the SEC, Department of Justice, states’ Attorneys General, CFTC, FINRA, the New York Stock Exchange, and other regulators and litigants involving:

• Advertising regulation
• Analysts’ conflicts of interest
• Regulatory capital deficiencies
• Delisting proceedings
• Insider trading
• Individual enforcement actions
• Market timing and late day trading
• Market manipulation
• Criminal proceedings

Bank Regulation and Compliance

Our global team of attorneys provides clients with strategic planning, analysis, and interpretation of legislation, amendments, and administrative rules governing the financial services industry. Attorneys within the practice, who are ranked in Chambers and Partners’ Chambers USA Guide, counsel regulated financial institutions (and their officers and directors) in connection with licensing and chartering, mergers and acquisitions, new products, critical examination reports, and enforcement actions relating to capital, asset quality, management, compliance, and other issues.

We regularly advise clients in connection with federal and state banking laws and regulations, such as:

• The Dodd-Frank Act and related regulations
• Bank Holding Company Act and Regulation Y
• Bank Secrecy Act, including USA PATRIOT Act amendments
• Bank Control Act and Bank Merger Act
• National Bank Act
• Federal Reserve Act, including Sections 23A and 23B and Regulation O
• Federal Deposit Insurance Act (including FIRREA and FDICIA)
• International Banking Act, Foreign Bank Supervision Enhancement Act, and Regulation K
• Gramm Leach Bliley Act
• Community Reinvestment Act

Consumer Financial Regulation, Compliance and Enforcement

Greenberg Traurig’s Financial Regulatory & Compliance Practice is a multi-office team that leverages the talent of attorneys across practice groups to assist a wide range of financial service firms and their vendors with federal and state regulatory, legislative, supervision, examination, licensing, compliance, and litigation matters. Our team consists of veteran consumer finance attorneys with decades of combined experience navigating complex regulatory landscapes. We closely monitor the activities of the CFPB, FTC, state regulators, and private litigants in implementing and enforcing consumer financial laws. Our team not only advises clients on compliance with existing regulations and responding to enforcement and litigation actions, but also with identifying important rulemaking initiatives and emerging enforcement and regulatory trends. Our regional and practice diversity enables us to collaborate across practices and geographies to deliver clients the service and value that they require in today’s world. Our attorneys are committed to assisting businesses of various sizes and in numerous industries.

Our consumer finance team has wide-ranging experience representing financial service providers on complex matters, including:

• Federal and state regulation of consumer credit and other financial services
• The scope of prohibition against unfair, deceptive, or abusive acts or practices
• CFPB and state supervisory examinations
• Civil investigative demands
• Compliance management system development, reviews, and audits
• Defense in CFPB, FTC, and state enforcement actions
• Defense of consumer class action and individual litigation
• Electronic lending
• Interpretation and application of Title X of the Dodd- Frank Act and federal consumer financial laws
• Participation in CFPB rulemakings
• Privacy and information security
• Product development, implementation, and maintenance
• Military lending
• Payment system issues

Our clients in the consumer finance sector include:

• Banks and their affiliates
• Small-dollar/short-term lenders
• Mortgage lenders and servicers
• Electronic payment and money services businesses
• Credit, debit, and prepaid card issuers and processors
• Direct and indirect consumer lenders

• Private student lenders
• Timeshare financing companies
• Debt collectors
• Vendors that act as “service providers” to covered entities offering consumer financial products or services

Financial Services Litigation

Greenberg Traurig’s Financial Services Litigation Practice assists clients in a variety of matters affecting the financial services industry. We regularly advise and defend global, national, regional, and local banks; venture capital and private equity firms; mortgage lenders; credit card companies; consumer finance companies; and other financial institutions. First and foremost, we are trial lawyers, and have a great breadth of experience litigating on behalf of our clients in disputes in U.S. state and federal courts, as well as in arbitration and before governmental agencies. We collaborate closely with the firm’s interdisciplinary team of corporate and regulatory lawyers, including former in-house bank counsels, bankers, and government attorneys, who have domestic and international experience advising all types of financial institutions on financing, corporate, transactional, regulatory, and workout matters.

Mortgage Lending and Servicing Regulation

We work with mortgage lenders and servicers to help ensure compliance with the relevant federal and state laws impacting residential and commercial mortgage origination, securitization, and servicing companies. We advise clients in the mortgage industry on regulation, examination, compliance, and supervision matters regarding various federal and state laws.

Fintech

Greenberg Traurig’s global Fintech Group has wide-ranging experience assisting clients on matters involving financial instruments and channels emerging outside of the traditional market and is ranked in the Chambers and Partners’ 2019 Chambers FinTech Guide for both the United States and Japan. Our attorneys have experience in crypto/virtual currencies, electronic third-party payment systems, digital wallet and mobile payment, crowdlending marketplaces, carrier billing systems, structuring ELV payments/SEPA, consumer and commercial purpose online lending, payments, and the regulation of emoney and banking activities. Our many years of personal experience serving the financial technology industry allows us to provide our clients with targeted and creative legal strategies and advice.

Blockchain

In order to leverage our diverse experience and for the purpose of centralizing our approach to blockchain matters, in 2017, Greenberg Traurig formed a global Blockchain Task Force, comprised of more than 75 attorneys across multiple legal disciplines in key financial hubs around the world. The Task Force advises clients on matters ranging from token generation events, initial coin offerings and cryptocurrency exchanges, to the development and licensing of blockchain-as-a-service.

Our multidisciplinary approach enables the Task Force to readily anticipate, recognize, and address challenges that our clients may face with respect to blockchain development or utilization. Our dedicated response team consists of experienced attorneys with diverse backgrounds in securities and broker-dealer regulations, entity and fund formation and financing, exchange formation, financial services regulation, technology and intellectual property licensing, and taxation. We also utilize resources from our robust government law and policy practice, which regularly advises governments and municipalities on evolving or model regulatory standards and other pertinent matters relating to blockchain.

Futures and Derivatives Regulatory and Compliance

Our team assists our futures and derivatives clients in navigating the complex statutory and regulatory web that governs their businesses. We represent futures commission merchants, foreign exchange firms, proprietary trading firms, and exchanges, introducing brokers in connection with virtually all aspects of their businesses, from formation and offering, to ongoing regulatory and compliance advice, to assistance with regulatory investigations, enforcement actions, and litigation.

Unclaimed Property

Greenberg Traurig’s Unclaimed Property and Escheat Group offers clients a multidisciplinary approach to unclaimed property/escheat matters. We regularly advise banks, broker-dealers, funds, and other companies in the financial services industry with regulatory inquiries or audits concerning unclaimed or abandoned property. We have also assisted clients in refining their processes, procedures, and reporting requirements relative to unclaimed property; in negotiating settlements; and in recovering unclaimed property that belongs to the financial institution.

Global Regulation

Due to Greenberg Traurig’s international presence, our attorneys are experienced in consulting with various regulators across the globe including:

EUROPE/UK

• Greenberg Traurig advises clients on European Union directives and policies and their implementation in member states.
• The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FAC)
• Germany’s Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin)
• Poland’s Financial Supervisory Commission (Komisja Nadzoru Finansowego)
• Austria’s Financial Market Authority (FMA)
• Switzerland’s Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA)
• Luxembourg’s Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF)

ASIA

• Japan’s Financial Services Agency (JFSA)
• Japan’s The Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission (SESC)
• Japan’s Kanto Local Finance Bureau (KLFB)
• Korea’s Financial Services Commission (FSC)
• Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service (FSS)
• China’s Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC)

MEXICO

• The Central Bank of Mexico (Banco de Mexico or BANXICO)
• The Ministry of Finance and Public Credit (Secretaria de Hacienda y Credito Publico or SHCP)
• The National Banking and Securities Commission (Comision Nacional Bancaria y de Valores or CNBV)
• The National Insurance and Bonds Commission (Comision Nacional de Seguros y Fianzas or CNSF)
• The National Pension System Commission (Comision Nacional del Sistema de Ahorro para el Retiro or CONSAR)
• The Financial Consumer Protection Bureau (Comision Nacional para la Proteccion y Defensa de los Usuarios de Servicios Financieros or CONDUSEF)