David E. Teitelbaum
- Banking and Financial Services
- Privacy and Cybersecurity
DAVID E. TEITELBAUM is a partner in Sidley’s Banking and Financial Services group, which received the 2019 Chambers USA Award for Financial Services Regulation. He has a broad regulatory practice for all types of entities involved in our payments and financial systems, including insured depository institutions and their holding companies, payment processors and systems, money transmitters, prepaid program managers, technology providers, virtual currency businesses and investors and retailers. He assists these companies in the wide range of regulatory issues that impact their business by providing a combination of thoughtful regulatory guidance, solution-oriented transactional assistance and strategic legislative planning. He routinely helps companies structure payment and other fintech products to minimize regulatory burden, negotiate commercial agreements for the support and distribution of those products and create customer interfaces and disclosures that balance regulatory requirements and business needs. David has been involved in the evolution of payment technology from its roots in credit, debit and ACH through on-going developments in prepaid, internet, mobile and virtual currency models. For example, he has assisted clients in projects involving blockchain-based technologies both as a form of payment and as an asset class for investment. David is able to combine a keen understanding of the underpinnings of various financial ecosystems with the creativity necessary to provide cutting edge legal advice to today’s fintech leaders.
David is a frequent writer and speaker in the financial services area, including at the NACHA Payments conferences. He is a member of the editorial board of FinTech Law Report, and his publications include numerous articles in The Journal of Payments Strategy and Systems and The Business Lawyer as well as co-authorship of The Community Reinvestment Act: Policies and Compliance (Prentice-Hall Law and Business), the U.S. chapter of the International Monetary Fund book, Payment Systems of the World and contributions to The Law of Electronic Fund Transfers (Warren, Gorham and Lamont).
Most recently, David was ranked in the 2020 Chambers FinTech guide in the USA Legal: Payments and Lending category. He was praised for having “excellent grounding in banking and finance matters, with considerable experience handling transactional and product development work for major financial institutions and wider corporate clients.” David was also selected as one of Law360’s Retail & E-Commerce MVPs of the year for 2017 and as a 2018 Cryptocurrency | Blockchain | Fintech Trailblazer by The National Law Journal. David also was named a “Leading Lawyer” in Chambers USA 2015, 2016 and 2017 in its Financial Services Regulation (Regulatory Compliance) section and has been named every year since 2011. Chambers highlighted that his “experience and expertise cover a wide range of regulatory matters, notably with respect to the consumer finance arena. He has particular knowledge of electronic payment systems and is considered to be an ‘extremely smart and capable lawyer’ who is ‘technically excellent, practical, responsive and efficient.’” He has also been recognized by The Best Lawyers in America since 2016.
Experience
- Representative Matters
- Memberships and Activities
Representative banking matters include:
- Provide day-to-day compliance advice to banks, thrifts and their holding companies regarding a wide range of issues, from affiliate transactions to investment authorities to anti-money laundering to consumer compliance, and almost everything in-between.
- Advise banks, thrifts and their holding companies in preparing for, managing and responding to regulatory examinations and associated supervisory actions, including the industry-wide horizontal review of sales practices and supervisory activities associated with “Operating Chokepoint.”
- Assist a financial holding company with respect to the negotiation of, and compliance with, limitations on its activities under Section 4(m) of the Bank Holding Company Act.
- Advise the U.S. banking subsidiary of a global financial holding company regarding a major reorganization and consolidation of support services in a bankruptcy-remote affiliate as part of global resolution planning.
- Assist a financial holding company in the divestiture of a national trust company subsidiary.
- Assist retail and affinity brands in the negotiation of private label and co-branded credit card program agreements governing billions of dollars of credit card receivables.
- Advise on all aspects of deposit sweep programs, including compliance matters, client agreements and intercompany agreements in support of the sweep arrangement.
Representative fintech matters include:
- Assist a leading mobile wallet provider in the creation of a person-to-person payment service, including the negotiation of underlying banking relationships.
- Represent a mobile payments start-up in all aspects of its payment product, including a soup-to-nuts evaluation of regulatory issues, state licensing, creation of cardholder documentation and disclosures and negotiation of agreements with banks and processors.
- Represent a social payments start-up in connection with the regulation of its in-game payment services.
- Advise payment processors, payment facilitators and marketplace platform providers (and investors in such entities) on state licensing issues associated with their roles in payment transactions, including by structuring relationships to avoid licensing issues or assisting clients in multistate licensing efforts.
- Obtain approval for the acquisition of control of state-licensed entities on a nation-wide basis.
- Advise several funds and other investors on their investments in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
- Assist in the proposed organization of a publicly traded bitcoin fund.
- Represent banking entities, technology providers and corporate end-users in negotiating the entire panoply of agreements governing various types of joint ventures, strategic relationships or commercial arrangements for the establishment and/or distribution of new fintech products and services.
- Draft payment network operating rules, including for credit, debit, electronic fund transfer, prepaid, mobile and electronic benefits transfer systems and products.
- Advise on enacted and proposed payment, mobile commerce and related legislation and regulation, including in the areas of consumer protection, safety and soundness, licensing, anti-money laundering, banking, cybersecurity, online gambling, e-money, money transmission, e-commerce, mobile payments and virtual currency.
- Fellow, American Bar Foundation
Capabilities
- Banking and Financial Services
- Privacy and Cybersecurity
- Anti-Money Laundering
- Bank/Broker-Dealer Integration
- Blockchain
- Business Transactions Involving Financial Institutions
- Consumer and Other Financial Services Litigation and Enforcement
- Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
- Cybersecurity, Cybercrime and Data Breaches
- Dodd-Frank Reform Act
- Electronic and Mobile Commerce
- Financial Industry and Payment Processing
- Financial Information and Privacy Law
- Financial Institutions Counseling
- Financial Services and Government Contracts
- Financial Services Legislation
- Fintech
- Global Financial Services
- Information Security and Data Breaches
- International Financial Institutions in the U.S.
- Internet, Social Media and E-Commerce
- Payments
- Retail Financial Services
News & Insights
Credentials
Admissions & Certifications
- District of Columbia
Education
- Stanford Law School, J.D., 1986 (Order of the Coif)
- Amherst College, B.A., 1983 (cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa)
Clerkships
- William A Norris, U.S. Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit (1986 - 1987)