Jim Bergin is a partner at Arnold & Porter. Mr. Bergin is the former acting co-general counsel, deputy general counsel and chief of staff of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, is a member of the firm’s financial services practice.  He advises clients as they navigate the complex and ever-changing financial and banking landscape.  As a member of the leadership team at the New York Fed over many years, Mr. Bergin interacted with a wide variety of domestic and foreign supervisory authorities and central banks.  As acting co-general counsel, Mr. Bergin served as part of the New York Fed’s executive management and oversaw the activities of the legal group, including the legal, compliance and bank applications functions.  He advised senior management on a wide range of matters, including regulation and supervision of financial institutions; monetary policy and implementation; financial services and accounts matters and corporate governance and risk management.

Erik Walsh is counsel at Arnold & Porter. He represents financial institution clients in enforcement, compliance and regulatory matters before the federal and state banking agencies, Department of Justice, and the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). He regularly represents domestic and foreign institutions in government and internal investigations, particularly in matters involving Bank Secrecy Act/anti-money laundering (BSA/AML) compliance, OFAC sanctions compliance and bank fraud. Mr. Walsh regularly advises clients on BSA/AML and OFAC policies and procedures as well as on bank examination preparation and remediation. Mr. Walsh has a background in litigation and appellate work on behalf of a wide variety of clients.

Mr. Walsh is a former senior counsel and assistant vice president in the enforcement, litigation, police, investigations and corporate affairs division at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. During his time there, he led enforcement investigations against financial institutions and employees, including significant matters involving violations of OFAC regulations and FX market manipulation.

Rob Azarow is a partner at Arnold & Porter and head of their financial institutions transactions practice.  He has extensive experience advising banks and other financial institutions on their most important transactional, corporate governance, and regulatory matters.  Mr. Azarow’s experience includes serving as lead corporate, transaction and regulatory counsel on financial institution mergers & acquisitions, financial asset acquisitions, branch purchases, joint ventures and collaboration agreements with fintech companies and other non-bank financial services providers, takeover defense strategies, and acquisitions of failed financial institutions and distressed assets from the FDIC.

Mr. Azarow also has extensive experience with public and private offerings of equity, debt, and hybrid securities, securities law compliance and related disclosure matters including how to incorporate ESG disclosures and the impact of ESG issues on investor activism. 

Further, Mr. Azarow has assisted financial institutions with their regulatory compliance matters, including response to examination issues, capital management and growth activities.