Regulatory Enforcement and Litigation

Hecker Fink has represented some of the country’s leading financial institutions and commercial businesses in regulatory proceedings and related litigation, including securities enforcement proceedings and litigation, money laundering investigations, and consumer financial services litigation and enforcement. Our lawyers have represented clients before all of the major regulatory and enforcement agencies, including the Department of Justice (DOJ), the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), various state Attorneys General, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), and many more.

Our team, which includes eleven former federal prosecutors, leverages its broad-based experience to navigate the interplay between investigations and the onslaught of shareholder, investor, and counter-party lawsuits that often follow favorable publicly negotiated resolutions. We have guided a wide range of institutions and individuals through enforcement actions and government investigations, including regulatory examinations focused on consumer lending and financial institution practices, complex civil litigation, and investigations and enforcement actions brought by federal and state regulators. In addition, we advise companies in connection with regulatory developments and government relations issues, including with respect to potential challenges to rulemaking and enforcement proceedings.

Select Representative Regulatory Enforcement and Litigation Matters

• Representation of Do Kwon, the founder of Terraform Labs, in connection with an SDNY indictment and SEC enforcement action.
• Representation of John Patrick Gorman III in an action brought by the CFTC for allegedly manipulating the prices of U.S. dollar interest-rate swap spreads, and for certain alleged misstatements, while working as the head of non-yen rate trading for a global financial services company in Japan. In a victory for our client, we secured a motion to dismiss in multiple respects, trimming the CFTC’s claims in count one of the complaint.
• Representation of AECOM, a government and commercial services contractor, in a False Claims Act case alleging false labor billing on a contract that AECOM and related entities performed for the U.S. Government in Afghanistan. We persuaded the Government to decline to intervene and secured a dismissal of most of the plaintiff’s claims.
• Representation of, and favorable settlement for, a hedge fund client in connection with allegations by the New York Department of Financial Services (DFS) and the New York Attorney General that the hedge fund invested in a business accused of running a predatory lending scheme. The favorable settlement required no admission of wrongdoing.
• Representation of one of the key individuals involved in a CFTC and SDNY investigation of a major foreign financial services organization in connection with certain bond issuances and related swaps trading.
• Representation of multiple financial industry participants in a DFS investigation related to social media advertising.
• Service as the independent compliance consultant for a large multinational bank based in another country, in connection with an SEC/CFTC resolution relating to off-channel communications at the bank.
• Service as the SEC-approved compliance consultant for a large financial institution in connection with a resolution regarding the institution’s failure to maintain and preserve all written communications in violation of federal securities laws.