Overview
With more than 25 years of experience in private practice and in-house at one of the world’s largest financial institutions, John advises clients on the laws and regulations governing the products, services, and operations of financial services companies. He regularly advises boards of directors, senior executives, and risk management teams on complex compliance and supervisory matters, as well as emerging risk management issues, including the use of artificial intelligence.
His practice covers federal banking laws and regulations administered by the Federal Reserve, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the FDIC, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, as well as requirements under state financial services. John also works with clients on national security-related compliance matters, including sanctions and anti-money laundering laws, where he advises on regulatory diligence matters and the negotiation of representations and warranties in transaction documents and the remediation of enforcement actions.
John advises business and risk teams on compliance and licensing considerations associated with new product launches, clearing and payment system memberships, and third-party business relationships. He also advises financial services companies in M&A and strategic investment transactions, including regulatory diligence, transaction structuring, and federal and state licensing issues arising from changes in control.
His practice includes advising institutions on their most complex supervisory engagement matters. John has managed legal support for multiple clients on their enterprise-wide responses to public and non-public supervisory and enforcement actions. He works directly with client risk and enterprise functions to design remediation plans, obtain audit and supervisory non-objections, and prepare periodic progress reports for boards of directors and supervisors.
Prior to joining Moore & Van Allen, John served as Chief Regulatory Counsel for Wells Fargo & Company. He provided legal support on regulatory compliance requirements to business groups and to the company’s compliance, risk, finance and treasury, and government and regulatory relations functions. He engaged directly with bank regulatory authorities on significant regulatory issues, including the permissibility of products and investments, strategic acquisitions, and supervisory and enforcement matters.
John is a regular speaker for the UNC Banking Institute and annually serves as a panelist for its ABCs of Banking Law program, an event where longstanding in-house and law firm regulatory practitioners help participants understand the legal framework governing bank operations in the United States and the supervisory framework that oversees them. John has also served on panels with representatives from federal banking agencies addressing emerging regulatory developments and governance issues affecting financial institutions and their boards.
John is a frequent author on banking regulation, artificial intelligence, and financial services compliance. He co-authored the Thomson Reuters Westlaw™ and Association of Corporate Counsel publication, Can We Keep Up With the Machines? Stronger and Faster Artificial Intelligence Systems Require Robust Risk Management Practices, published in the Journal of Financial Compliance. He recently co-authored, Lexology In-Depth: Banking Regulation - Edition 17, focusing on key insights on U.S. federal banking regulation, and is a multi-year co-author of the Banking Regulation chapter of the Chambers USA Global Practice Guide. In addition, he is the lead author of Lexis’ practice note on federal financial services law and state law preemption, The Evolving Framework of Federal Preemption for Financial Services Companies. In addition, John provides regular updates to in-house legal counsel and compliance professionals on supervisory trends and regulatory developments through the firm’s White-Collar Defense, Investigations, and Regulatory Advice Blog.
Notable
Notable
- Chambers USA - North Carolina, Banking & Finance: Mainly Regulatory, 2024-2026
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News
Insights
Blogs and Resources
Blog Posts
Capabilities
Education
J.D., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Law, 1997
B.A., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1994
Admissions
- U.S. District Court, Western, Middle and Eastern Districts of North Carolina, 1998
- North Carolina, 1997