Manatt, Phelps & Phillips LLP has announced that renowned financial services lawyer Carol Van Cleef has joined the Washington D.C. office of the firm as a partner in its Financial Services group. Van Cleef leaves Patton Boggs, where she was a partner in the firm’s emerging payments and anti-money laundering compliance practices.
Van Cleef is one of the most sought-after financial services lawyers who is considered an expert not only in laws of traditional financial services but also of services in the digital age including bitcoin and other crypto-currency. She has extensive experience in the field of practice with focus on electronic payments, anti-money laundering, and Office of Foreign Assets Control compliance, consumer protection, banking regulatory and enforcement issues, privacy and data security and state money transmitter licensing.
She is a Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist and is the author of a series of anti-money laundering compliance training programs, which have been sponsored by the Conference of State Bank Supervisors and attended by regulators from more than 45 states and representatives of domestic and foreign financial institutions and money service businesses.
In her practice, she regularly represents banking organizations and credit unions; retailers; third party payment processors and other payment-related companies; money services business and other non banking financial institutions; private equity and venture capital firms and other financial institutions in federal and state regulatory, enforcement and compliance matters.
Speaking on Van Cleef joining the firm, Gordon M. Bava, the co-chair and national chair of Manatt’s Business, Finance, and Tax division said, “We are thrilled to have Carol with us… She has developed a sophisticated financial services practice focusing on critical issues involving electronic payments, data security and privacy as well as anti-money laundering compliance. Carol’s deep experience and strategic thinking in these areas further complement our considerable capabilities in the financial services and emerging payments industries.”
In addition to the Conference of State Bank Supervisors, Van Cleef has worked closely with the Money Transmitter Regulators Association and the National Association of State Credit Union Supervisors. She has served on the editorial board of the Association of Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialists’ “ACAMs Today,” as a member of National Automated Clearing House Association’s Council for Electronic Billing and Payment, as the vice chair of the Legislative Process and Lobbying Committee of the American Bar Association’s Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice Section, and as a member of the Executive Committee of the Federal Bar Association’s Banking Law Committee. She is a past president of Women in Housing and Finance.
Van Cleef earned a B.S.F.S. from Georgetown University and a J.D. from American University Washington College of Law.