Wall Street revolver takes regulatory insight to Bank of America

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One Wall Street revolver will continue a very successful post-regulatory agency career with a newly created position at Bank of America, the nation's largest bank.

Gary Lynch, who was the head of enforcement at the Securities and Exchange Commission in the 1980’s, most recently left Morgan Stanley where he was the financial giant’s vice chairman and before that an executive vice president and chief legal officer for the firm. Prior to his time at Morgan Stanley he was the chief legal counsel for Credit Suisse – an international financial services company.

Lynch will now be the global chief of legal, compliance and regulatory relations for Bank of America, a newly created position.

In his roles at both Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse, he helped defend against and settle lawsuits he once was in charge of carrying out for the SEC. It seems he’ll be handling similar issues regarding regulatory compliance for Bank of America as well.  In recent years, the division he once headed up at the SEC has undergone scrutiny for failing to detect securities law violations as blatant as the Ponzi scheme carried out by Bernie Madoff.

BofA, Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley are all big players in the Washington lobbying scene, spending millions each on financial issues such as forming and implementing regulatory reform mandated by the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act signed into law in July, 2010.

Lynch’s new employer alone spent $4 million in 2010 to influence the way the new regulations will affect its way of doing business.

An article published last month in The Business Insider lists 22 revolvers that went from Wall Street to Washington to Wall Street again, not including Lynch, taking their insight and influence with them each time. Some of the people listed worked for the Department of Treasury during or after the onset of the financial crisis in 2008 and helped shape the still-debated Troubled Asset Relief Program. Henry Paulson, former Secretary of Treasury under President George W. Bush and President Obama is one of those listed as well as Neel Kashkari, former Special assistant to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and led the Office of Financial Stability.