Financial Privacy

From assisting with drafting key legislation, to participating in key rulemaking proposals and policy initiatives, to counseling clients on complying with implementing requirements, to representing clients in litigation, investigations, and agency examinations, Covington’s Financial Privacy Practice lawyers have been at the center of the development of comprehensive and workable rules to protect the privacy of personal financial information. By providing testimony, advice, and representation, we are thought leaders on these critical policy and business issues.

Firm lawyers were extensively involved in the legislative process that produced the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLB), governing general financial institution privacy, and the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACTA), the 2003 legislation that overhauled the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and made permanent its federal preemptions. We also worked closely with the federal regulatory agencies that issued detailed regulations implementing these laws. In fact, two of our lawyers led the implementation team sport key rulemaking proceedings at the Federal Reserve Board and Federal Trade Commission.

Capabilities

Our team regularly advises clients regarding compliance with GLB, FACTA, FCRA and their underlying regulations , assisting them with understanding and complying with the many state laws and regulations that have emerged in recent years governing financial privacy and identity theft. We have also advised UK and European financial institutions on the privacy implications of complying with EU money-laundering rules and access requests.

Our lawyers regularly work with both financial and non-financial companies to respond to data security breaches, as well as develop programs to avoid such breaches. We also have negotiated with federal and state regulators on behalf of clients to mitigate potential penalties and enforcement actions related to data security breaches. We have deep experience with regulatory authorities at every level, which has played an important role in our ability to achieve favorable results for our clients.