Former FDIC regulator descends on Cravath to set up DC operations
WASHINGTON —Jelena McWilliams, who resigned as head of Federal Deposit Insurance Corp earlier this year, is joining law firm Cravath, Swain & Moore to help set up an office in Washington DC.
McWilliams, who will lead the new office, will join Elad Roisman, former commissioner and acting chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, and Jennifer S. Leite, former associate director in the SEC’s Department of Enforcement, as partners, Cravath said. This will be the firm’s third office, joining existing offices in London and New York.
Jelena McWilliams will join the firm Cravath following her high-profile exit from Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Andrew Harr/Bloomberg.
Andrew Harrer / Bloomberg
According to the firm, the move comes amid an “increasingly complex and proactive regulatory environment”.
Cravath said the DC office will advise on financial services and fintech as well as corporate governance and other regulatory matters. The firm recently represented GreenSky in the acquisition by Goldman Sachs and Afterpay in its acquisition by Square.
Cravath, who frequently advises on mergers and acquisitions, will likely put McWilliams back in the way of his former colleagues at the FDIC, where the conflict over bank merger policy led to McWilliams’ high-profile and sudden exit.
Led by Acting Chairman Martin Gruenberg, the FDIC closed its comment period on its overhaul of bank merger policy last week. The Democrat-controlled FDIC board originally voted to issue a request for comment on the agency’s bank merger policy over McWilliams’ objections.
McWilliams has been both a banker and a lawyer; She was previously the Executive Vice President and Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary of Fifth Third Bank. Prior to this, he served in the US Senate, most recently as chief counsel and deputy staff director with the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, and as an attorney on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors during the financial crisis. .
