A new regulatory evolution: Cryptocurrency and the securities industry at the crossroads

Author's Biography

Alma Angotti is a Managing Director and co-head of the Global Investigations & Compliance practice. With over 25 years of regulatory practice, Ms Angotti has held senior enforcement positions at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). In these positions, she was responsible for conducting investigations involving securities fraud, insider trading, financial fraud, anti-money laundering (AML) and counter terrorist financing, market manipulation, investor and market protection, and other regulatory violations. At FinCEN and FINRA, she designed and led the AML enforcement programmes. She regularly worked with criminal prosecutors in a variety of jurisdictions and the US Department of Justice to investigate and bring actions jointly. Ms Angotti has counselled her clients, large global financial institutions, multinational companies, smaller financial institutions, broker-dealers, Fintech companies and digital assets businesses, in a variety of projects, including gap analyses, compliance programme reviews, risk assessments, remediation efforts, investigations and transaction reviews. Recently, she held interim senior compliance leadership positions at several global and regional financial institutions providing day-to-day management of their compliance programmes and assisting them with implementing enhancements, often in the context of a regulatory or criminal enforcement action. She has trained and advised the financial services industry as well as other regulators and government officials worldwide on AML, sanctions, and combating the financing of terrorism (CFT) and other regulatory compliance issues.

Adam Klauder is a Senior Director in Navigant’s Global Investigations and Compliance practice. He has an extensive background in developing overall compliance strategy, directing and coordinating sensitive and high-profile global investigations, and providing strategic guidance on the build-out of corporate compliance functions. Prior to joining Navigant, Mr Klauder was a senior global compliance executive at HSBC, serving as Global Head of Sanctions Investigations and Global Investigations Advisor. In these roles, Mr Klauder provided subject matter expertise across all global business lines and financial crime types, including sanctions, money laundering, fraud, bribery and corruption and terrorist financing, and led global teams on all aspects of the most significant cross-border investigations posing material risk to the bank. Prior to joining HSBC, Mr Klauder was a counsel at Clifford Chance, where he delivered legal expertise with a focus on risk management, compliance and internal investigations. He was a strategic adviser to clients in the defence, healthcare, financial services, transportation and logistics, energy and infrastructure, and telecommunications sectors, and a subject matter expert in compliance matters involving economic sanctions, export controls, anti-corruption, data privacy and other cross-border regulatory regimes.

Karina Bjelland is a managing consultant in Navigant Consulting’s Global Investigations and Compliance practice. At Navigant, she has worked on multiple matters related to the securities industry, including analyses of AML compliance programmes and anti-financial crime programmes at broker-dealers, and retroactive reviews of market manipulation. Ms Bjelland has also held positions in the areas of financial institution supervision and regulation and securities litigation consulting. Prior to joining Navigant, she worked as a litigation consultant to major law firms, Fortune 500 corporations, and regulatory organisations in the areas of operational risk, compliance, accounting and finance. She also worked in enforcement at a securities industry regulator, FINRA, where she conducted numerous investigations of securities firms and associated individuals. These investigations involved various issues: fraud, supervision, suitability, misappropriation, penny stock rules, advertising, anti-money laundering and market manipulation. Ms Bjelland also held several analyst positions at a securities litigation consulting firm, where she managed the team of analysts responsible for evaluating the historical and hypothetical investment performance of securities brokerage accounts in support of litigation projects.