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Michael Watling represents financial institutions and executives in regulatory enforcement and white-collar matters. Michael is an experienced trial lawyer, having served as both a federal prosecutor in the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) Tax Division and as Senior Litigation Counsel in the Enforcement Department of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). In private practice Michael represents clients in both civil and criminal matters and in internal investigations involving a wide range of accounting, tax, and securities issues. Michael has had significant success representing clients in litigation and during investigations, often resolving matters for clients without any enforcement action and achieving favorable verdicts and settlements once in litigation. Michael also provides compliance advice to a variety of financial services and fintech companies, particularly in areas concerning financial crimes and anti-money laundering compliance.
For over fifteen years Michael served as a prosecutor and financial regulator where he led dozens of complex white-collar investigations and served as lead trial counsel in many of his organizations’ most complex and programmatically important matters. During that time, Michael developed broad subject matter expertise in both securities and tax law, having handled diverse cases involving securities fraud, market manipulation, pump-and-dump schemes, tax evasion, tax shelter promoters, mortgage fraud, money laundering, programmatic supervision and AML failures, and a wide range of broker-dealer sales practice violations.
Michael also served as a Deputy Associate Counsel in the Office of the White House Counsel during the administration of President Barack Obama. While at the White House, Michael vetted presidential appointees and counseled the president and vice president on tax-related matters. Michael started his legal career as an Assistant District Attorney in Queens County, New York.
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