The Treasury Department announced today that Comptroller of the Currency Thomas Curry would be stepping down from his post effective this Friday, May 5, 2017.  Keith Noreika, a Washington, D.C., banking lawyer who was part of President Trump’s transition team for Treasury, will be appointed First Deputy Comptroller of the Currency and will serve as Acting Comptroller until Mr. Curry’s permanent replacement is appointed and confirmed.  Mr. Curry’s five-year term as Comptroller expired in April, but he had continued in that position for the past month, pending the appointment of a replacement.

Mr. Noreika, currently a partner and head of the Financial Institutions Regulatory Practice at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP, began his career at Covington where he was an associate and later a partner from 1998 until August 2016.  He maintained an active advisory practice and represented banks in litigation over preemption and other regulatory issues in Federal courts.

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that the Administration is considering Joseph Otting, the former Chief Executive Officer of OneWest Bank, to serve as the next Comptroller.  The Administration is yet to formally announce Mr. Curry’s permanent replacement.

Mr. Noreika’s appointment as Acting Comptroller makes the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (the “OCC”) the first of the four major Federal bank regulators — i.e., the Federal Reserve, the OCC, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — to be led by an appointee of the Trump Administration.  The Administration also has not yet appointed a replacement for Daniel Tarullo, who served during the Obama Administration as the point person for the Federal Reserve’s bank regulatory activities, but who resigned from the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve in early April.

Photo of Nikhil Gore Nikhil Gore

A member of the international arbitration and financial institutions practices, Nikhil V. Gore represents sovereign states and U.S. and global firms in international treaty-based and commercial disputes. He also regularly represents U.S. financial institutions, and the U.S. branches and affiliates of foreign financial…

A member of the international arbitration and financial institutions practices, Nikhil V. Gore represents sovereign states and U.S. and global firms in international treaty-based and commercial disputes. He also regularly represents U.S. financial institutions, and the U.S. branches and affiliates of foreign financial institutions, in investigations and inquiries involving the Federal Reserve, OCC, FDIC, CFPB, and state banking regulators.

Mr. Gore has served as counsel in investment and commercial arbitrations spanning several industries and a variety of regions, including Asia, Eastern Europe, North America, and Southern Africa. Additionally, he has expertise in the law of the sea, and was part of the Covington team that secured an order from the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, which required Russia to release three Ukrainian naval vessels and twenty-four servicemen detained in the Black Sea in 2018.

In his financial institutions practice, Mr. Gore has experience with enforcement actions and investigations relating to the Bank Secrecy Act, the federal criminal money laundering statutes, the full range of safety and soundness issues (including, in particular, supervisory reviews of bank control functions), and fair lending and consumer compliance. Mr. Gore is a regular contributor to the firm’s financial services blog.