Overview
(February 8, 2024, Washington, DC) — Steptoe LLP has announced the continued growth of its Government Affairs and Public Policy practices with the addition of leading financial services partner Ben Saul. Ben joins the firm as a partner in Washington, DC.
“We are thrilled to welcome someone with Ben’s record as a leader in high-stakes enforcement, regulatory compliance and transactional matters,” commented firm chair Gwen Renigar. “Ben’s enforcement and regulatory experience fits well in our growing consumer financial services group, as does his work at the intersection of business, policy, and the courts.”
Ben is a trusted advisor to banks, fintechs, non-bank financial institutions, and other companies providing financial products and services. Ben has particular experience assisting these clients in matters involving the CFPB, DOJ, OCC, FRB, FDIC, FTC, HUD, state financial services authorities, and state attorneys general. These investigation and enforcement matters have involved anti-discrimination and fair lending, unfair deceptive or abusive trade practices, violations of consumer protection laws, payments and card network issues, AML/BSA, troubled or failed banks, fraud, leveraged lending, supervisory ratings, and other safety and soundness issues. Often, these matters involve concurrent proceedings by multiple enforcement agencies and private parties.
Ben’s regulatory practice includes advising financial services companies, fintechs, and crypto and digital asset companies on cutting-edge financial product and service development, licensing and chartering, joint ventures, outsourcing and bank partnership agreements, compliance program enhancement, and the applicability of federal and state financial services laws. These matters typically involve emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and blockchain.
Ben also advises private equity funds, venture capital funds, hedge funds, and strategic investors on risk identification and mitigation and obtaining necessary regulatory approvals for financial services and FinTech mergers and acquisitions and other investments.
Ben added: “I'm excited to bring my experience helping clients navigate their most challenging government investigation, contentious supervisory, litigation, and regulatory compliance matters to Steptoe. The firm has built a strong bench of financial services attorneys. I look forward to collaborating with this team and drawing on all of the resources the firm has to offer to deliver exceptional service and results for our clients.”
The addition follows another group of recent high-profile hires by Steptoe in its expanding consumer financial services policy, regulatory and litigation space, including Julia Strickland, Juliana Gerrick, Andrew Owens, Stephen Aschettino, Stephen Newman, Christopher Fredrich, and Ryan Hayden.
Over the past two years, Steptoe’s Financial Services practice has handled a number of significant matters, often at the boundary areas of emerging regulation and financial services products. These include advocating on behalf of a US-based cryptocurrency exchange on the issue of what constitutes "actual delivery" in the digital currency context under CFTC rules, representing Discover Financial Services in defending a putative class action raising novel discrimination issues, achieving a significant victory on behalf of Chase Bank before the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in Milgram v. Chase Bank USA, N.A, in a matter alleging Fair Credit Reporting Act violations, and advising the Independent Dealer and Trader Association (IDTA) on policy and regulatory issues that impact smaller and mid-sized participants in those markets.
About Steptoe
In more than 110 years of practice, Steptoe has earned an international reputation for vigorous representation of clients before governmental agencies, successful advocacy in litigation and arbitration, and creative and practical advice in structuring business transactions. Steptoe has more than 500 lawyers and other professional staff across offices in Beijing, Brussels, Chicago, Hong Kong, Houston, London, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, and Washington. For more information, visit www.steptoe.com.
The diversity of the firm is a critical factor in its success. The firm’s chair is a woman; the majority of the firm’s elected executive committee is female; the majority of Steptoe's ten offices are managed by women; and the majority of Steptoe’s practice groups have women as leaders. The firm's six-person professional business services leadership is equally diverse, with two women of color, and other leaders who openly identify as LGBTQ+.
