Jeffrey Alberts

Jeffrey Alberts co-heads the firm’s Financial Institutions Group. In this role, Jeffrey advises banks and other financial institutions on regulatory matters. He also represents banks, their boards of directors, and senior management in regulatory inquiries and enforcement actions, internal investigations, and criminal proceedings.

Jeffrey represents clients before a variety of regulators of financial institutions, including the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), and the Federal Reserve Board (FRB), as well as state agencies such as the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS). He also negotiates on behalf of clients with other federal agencies, such as the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

Jeffrey is known as a forceful advocate for clients in responding to regulatory actions. Unlike most regulatory attorneys, he is an experienced trial lawyer and has specific experience in regulatory enforcement proceedings. Jeffrey’s ability to demonstrate shortcomings in the positions taken by bank regulators was evident, for example, when he represented a client in an enforcement action in which a federal bank regulator sought to impose a financial penalty on Jeffrey’s client based in part on allegedly unsafe and unsound practices. Rather than settle on the regulator’s proposed terms, Jeffrey took the case to trial. At trial, the client was vindicated, paid no penalty, and the bank regulator agreed to pay over $1.5 million to the client to resolve the matter.

Jeffrey is particularly interested in the intersection between traditional banking and advances in financial technology. For example, he successfully represented a bank before a federal regulator in a proposal to offer bank customers a service that made use of cryptocurrency. Jeffrey also advises financial institutions and FinTech companies on how regulations such as Bank Secrecy Act apply to new and cutting-edge FinTech applications and platforms.