MVA White Collar Defense, Investigations, and Regulatory Advice Blog

By Kristina Whittaker and Ed O'Keefe. For the last three weeks or so, the federal and state banking agencies, collectively and individually, have, with increasing urgency, called on financial institutions to meet the financial needs of customers impacted by the COVID-19. Congress has now codified some of the guidance in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act). To assist our clients in understanding the scale and scope of the regulatory actions, we describe the state of play as we know it today. 

As first discussed in the article by our colleagues Neil ...

MVA is proud to once again be a sponsoring partner for The Clearing House + Bank Policy Institute Annual Conference, which took take place in New York on November 19–21. Now in its ninth year, The Clearing House + Bank Policy Institute Annual Conference is the leading conference for key regulatory, legal, and payments issues facing America’s largest commercial banks. Held for two and a half days at The Pierre Hotel in New York, the TCH + BPI Annual Conference brings together the industry’s leading executives and thought leaders – C-suite financial services executives ...

By Neil Bloomfield and Kristina Whittaker. Operational risk is a continuing and increasing focus of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and, as a result, it needs to be a greater priority of the institutions it regulates. The OCC publishes a "Semiannual Risk Perspective" that addresses key issues facing banks and other federally chartered institutions.

In recent years, the OCC has categorized operational risks as elevated as banks respond to an evolving and increasingly complex environment. The OCC defines operational risk as the risk to current or projected financial ...

By Kristina Whittaker and Neil Bloomfield. In the aftermath of sales practices, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) recently published a bulletin on fraud risk management principles that are applicable to all federally chartered financial institutions. The bulletin supplements existing OCC and interagency guidance and provides a roadmap of OCC expectations.  

The OCC highlights certain risk management principles:

• A bank should have sound corporate governance practices that instill a corporate culture of ethical standards and promote employee ...

2018 ANNUAL CONFERENCE (Nov. 2018): We are proud to once again be a sponsoring partner for The Clearing House + Bank Policy Institute Annual Conference, which will take place in New York on November 26–28, 2018.  The Annual Conference provides a forum for the industry’s leaders to examine the changing dynamics of the bank regulatory and payments landscape.  Keynote speakers for this year’s conference include Jelena McWilliams, Chair of the FDIC, Antony Phillipson, British Consul General in New York and HM Trade Commissioner for North America, Richard Clarida, Vice Chairman of ...

Financial Regulatory Advice and Response Team members Neil Bloomfield, Ed O’Keefe, Tom Pennington, and Kris Whittaker attended the Prudential Regulation Conference presented by SIFMA and The Clearing House in Washington, D.C.  This year’s conference was focused on the future of prudential regulation, including the new leadership at the prudential agencies.  The conference included insights from the Joseph M. Otting, Comptroller of the Currency, Mark E. Van Der Weide, General Counsel for the Federal Reserve, and Jelena McWilliams, Chairman of the FDIC, among others.   There ...

By Kristina Whittaker[1]. Mick Mulvaney was appointed Acting Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (Bureau) on November 25, 2017.  His term will end on June 22, 2018, unless the President nominates a Director prior to that date, in which case Mr. Mulvaney will remain as Acting Director until a new Director is confirmed.  During his time as Acting Director, Mr.  Mulvaney has sought to change the priorities and culture of the Bureau, starting by changing its name to align with Title X of the Dodd Frank Act to the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection.  His recent public ...

In a series of interviews, speeches and other public releases, OCC Comptroller Joseph Otting has set out a number of priorities, some substantive, some related to how the agency operates.  It is clear that Mr. Otting intends to roll back or “modernize” regulations that have been viewed as burdensome or ineffective by the financial industry.  In addition, he intends to make changes to the agency in ways that pull back on the Washington-centric structure and puts more authority in the hands of local supervisors.   All of these are works in progress and some require action and/or ...

Moore & Van Allen PLLC is pleased to announce that Kristina (“Kris”) B. Whittaker, former Deputy Comptroller for Special Supervision in the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), has joined the firm’s Charlotte office as Counsel. Whittaker will practice on Moore and Van Allen’s growing Financial Regulatory Advice and Response team. *

“Kris’ valuable experience and longstanding esteem within the OCC will greatly benefit our clients and increase our practice capabilities,” said Charlotte Member Edward P. O’Keefe. “Kris brings more ...