Legal & Compliance

The Bank's Legal & Compliance Group consists of three separate and distinct functions: Legal, Compliance, and Group Operations and Strategy.

The Legal Function’s mission is to provide effective, efficient and client-focused legal services to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The function is headed by the Bank’s general counsel and consists of two divisions, each headed by a deputy general counsel.

• The Supervision, Markets, & Financial Services (SMFS) division provides legal advice in connection with:
  (i) financial institution supervisory and regulatory matters, including legal support for supervision and regulatory reporting and legal analysis of regulatory applications; (ii) the Bank's open market, U.S. Treasury auction, foreign exchange, reference rate and discount window operations; (iii) the Bank's external and sponsored committees; and (iv) financial and account services of the Bank for the U.S. Treasury, foreign central banks and international organizations, depository institutions, and other customers, and analyzes pending legislation.

  Bank Applications, sitting within SMFS, coordinates, analyzes, evaluates and recommends Federal Reserve action on a variety of proposals by domestic and foreign banking organizations. Bank Applications assists in proposing amendments to applicable laws and regulations and contributes to the formulation of Federal Reserve policy on application matters. In addition, it educates local and foreign banking communities about U.S. laws and regulations relating to mergers, acquisitions, and expansionary activities. The Head of Bank Applications reports to the deputy general counsel for Supervision, Markets & Financial Services. For more information about filing bank applications, click here.

• The Enterprise Legal Services division provides a range of expertise in support of the Bank’s mission and operations. The Enforcement and Litigation team represents the Bank in litigation and other disputes, advises on litigation risk and oversight matters and, together with the Board of Governors, pursues regulatory enforcement investigations and actions against supervised financial institutions in the Second Federal Reserve District. The Financial Intelligence and Investigations Unit conducts investigations, responds to law enforcement requests, and provides expertise on matters including financial fraud, accounting, and BSA/AML and OFAC-related matters. The Employment and Corporate Matters team advises on employment and labor law matters that impact the Bank’s people, including those related to diversity, ethics, immigration, organizational change, and personnel policies, and advises and provides legal support to the Bank’s Freedom of Information Office. The Technology and Contracts team drafts, negotiates and advises on documents relating to the Bank’s procurement of goods and services, software and data licensing, cloud computing, and other technologies as well as matters relating to intellectual property, data privacy and security.

The Compliance Function is an independent advisory and control function within the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The Function’s mission is to protect the Bank and serve the public interest by ensuring that the Bank adopts sound risk-based compliance controls and by promoting a strong ethical mindset. The Function’s structure is organized around three related, but independent objectives: assessing compliance risk; managing and mitigating compliance risk through the implementation of programs and controls in the six core areas of compliance risk (i.e., ethics and conduct, financial crime, fraud, sensitive data management, Markets desk trading, and third party compliance); and assessing the effectiveness of those programs and controls through testing.

The Group Operations and Strategy Function provides the Legal & Compliance Group with appropriate resources and strategies in furtherance of group and Bank objectives through three units:

• Business Operations & Strategy liaises between the Legal & Compliance Group and key stakeholders in the Bank's support areas to implement decisions made by Legal & Compliance Group management, helps the group strategically assess its work, and manages the group’s administrative assistants, law library, and professional development programs.
• Group Product Services establishes and promotes information management best practices and carries out tasks in support of the capture, organization, access control, classification, management, and distribution of data, technology, and records used by the Legal & Compliance Group.
• Risk Management and Contingency Planning is responsible for traditional contingency planning and for strengthening the Legal & Compliance Group’s risk management processes.