In response to the global financial crisis, members of the firm have been active in regulatory reform and other related public service advisory work for various entities. As part of this effort, we represented
Morgan Stanley on a pro bono basis as financial advisor to the
U.S. Department of the Treasury in its plan and conservatorship for
Fannie Mae and
Freddie Mac.
In other matters, partners of the firm have served or are serving as:
- Co-chair of the American Bar Association’s Task Force on Financial Markets Regulatory Reform, which was recently established by the President and Board of the ABA. The Task Force will be monitoring and developing recommendations and comments on legislative and regulatory proposals for reform of the financial markets.
- A member of and counsel to the Committee on Capital Markets Regulation, an independent, bipartisan research organization dedicated to improving the regulation of U.S. capital markets.
- Two of four experts advising a working group of the Group of Thirty, chaired by Paul A. Volcker, in the preparation of its report, “Financial Reform: A Framework for Financial Stability.” The Group of Thirty is a consultative group on international economic and monetary affairs. Cleary Gottlieb was the only law firm with participants serving as experts.
- A member of and counsel to the U.S. Treasury’s Advisory Committee on the Auditing Profession, led by co-chairs Arthur Levitt, Jr. and Donald T. Nicolaisen. In September 2008, the Committee voted to adopt its Final Report containing more than 30 recommendations to improve the sustainability of the public company auditing profession.
- Participants in a formal roundtable hosted by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s 21st Century Disclosure Initiative in October 2008. The Initiative, established by Chairman Cox in June 2008, is a wide-ranging internal effort by the SEC to fundamentally rethink financial disclosure. The roundtable was formed to gather input from companies, investors, practitioners and academics on ways to modernize the disclosure system.
- A guest speaker at a public lecture in Iceland in December 2008 entitled “A Short History of Sovereign Financial Crises.” This partner also spoke at a London School of Economics conference on the regulatory response to the credit crisis, gave testimony before a Committee of the House of Lords on derivative financial products and the credit crisis, and published several articles relating to the global financial turmoil.