THE HARVARD LAW SCHOOL ASSOCIATION OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

THE HARVARD LAW SCHOOL ASSOCIATION OF NEW YORK CITY

HARVARD KENNEDY SCHOOL WASHINGTON DC ALUMNI COUNCIL

presents:

Cryptocurrencies: The Regulatory Landscape and Recent Developments
A Virtual Panel Discussion

Wednesday, March 16, 2022,

6:30 - 8:00 p.m.

This important and timely discussion will feature esteemed panelists Michael J. Leotta (HLS ’97), Valerie A. Szczepanik, Petal Walker (HLS ’08), Del Wright (HKS ’97) and Yesha Yadav (HLS ’09).

About our Panelists:

Michael J. Leotta (HLS ’97) is a partner in the Washington DC office of WilmerHale.  Mike conducts internal investigations and represents corporations and individuals in white collar criminal law and regulatory enforcement matters. He regularly represents US consumer banks, global correspondent banks, broker-dealers, investment advisers, and FinTech companies in a broad range of matters, including defending financial institutions’ compliance with the Bank Secrecy Act and related anti-money laundering (AML) rules, securities law, and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). He represents clients in investigations and examinations by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and state prosecutors; domestic and international financial regulators such as the Federal Reserve Board of Governors (the Fed), the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network

Valerie A. Szczepanik is the Director of the Strategic Hub for Innovation and Financial Technology (FinHub) Office at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).  Before that, she was the Senior Advisor for Digital Assets and Innovation and an Associate Director in the SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance.  She also served as Assistant Director in the SEC Division of Enforcement’s Cyber Unit.  Ms. Szczepanik served as a Special Assistant United States Attorney at the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York.  She clerked for federal judges on the United States District Court for the District of Columbia and the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and, prior to clerking, practiced patent law.  Ms. Szczepanik received her Juris Doctor degree from Georgetown University and her Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania.

Petal Walker (HLS ’08) is a Managing Director in Risk & Financial Advisory/Regulatory & Legal Support, at Deloitte & Touche LLP. Petal aids banks, brokers, exchanges as well as digital asset exchanges and intermediaries to design processes that are regulatorily compliant.  Petal was formerly Special Counsel at WilmerHale, advising innovators in the digital space, including advising: crypto exchanges on designing their products, determining appropriate rules for membership, and setting appropriate trading rules; firms on the classification of digital assets and whether delivery of crypto constitutes actual delivery. Petal also helped introduce the first bitcoin-related product to the CFTC. Petal holds a doctorate in both law and education from Harvard in addition to her Bachelor of Arts in History from Yale University. She also serves as a Director on Women in Derivatives (WIND) and Chair of its Leadership Committee, which helps attract, retain, and develop women in finance.

Del Wright Jr. (HKS ’97) is a Professor of Law at UMKC School of Law. Professor Wright joined the UMKC School of Law faculty in 2017, and teaches in the areas of finance, business, securities, tax, venture capital, and crypto. His current research focuses on crypto and the regulation of blockchain technologies. He recently published a short & happy guide to Bitcoin, Blockchain, and Crypto (West 2020), and expects to publish Blockchain & Crypto: in a nutshell later this year. His scholarship explores the intersectionality of the law with tax, finance, and crypto. Prof. Wright earned a Master in Public Policy degree from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, focusing on financial policy and regulation, and a Juris Doctor from The Law School at the University of Chicago. In the past few years, he has consulted with numerous crypto projects, presented to over two-dozen organizations on blockchain and crypto issues, taught the regulatory section of the first crypto certification course for financial planners, appeared on podcasts, and written law review articles on crypto, including a recent article on the crypto provisions in the 2021 Infrastructure Bill. Before becoming an academic, Prof. Wright worked as an investment banker with Bank of America Securities, a lawyer with Skadden Arps, and served as a Trial Attorney with the Tax Division of the Department of Justice.

Yesha Yadav (HLS ’09) is Associate Dean and Robert Belton Director of Diversity, Equity and Community Professor of Law Faculty Co-director, LL.M at Vanderbilt Law School. Professor Yadav’s research interests lie in the area of financial and securities regulation, notably with respect to the evolving response of regulatory policy to innovations in financial engineering, market microstructure and globalization. Before joining Vanderbilt's law faculty in 2011, Dean Yadav worked as legal counsel with the World Bank in its finance, private-sector development and infrastructure unit, where she specialized in financial regulation and insolvency and creditor-debtor rights. Before joining the World Bank in 2009, she practiced from 2004-08 in the London and Paris offices of Clifford Chance, in the firm's financial regulation and derivatives group. As part of her work in the area of payments regulation, she was assigned to advise the European Payments Council on the establishment of the Single Euro Payments Area, an initiative that seeks to integrate the domestic payments markets across the European Economic Area and Switzerland. Since joining Vanderbilt, Yadav has served as honorary advisor to India’s Financial Services Law Reform Commission and on the Atlantic Council’s Task Force on Divergence and the Transatlantic Financial Reform and G-20 Agenda. She is a member of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission’s Technology Advisory Committee and the Tennessee State Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

Zoom Webinar

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