Law firm Sidley Austin has added two new partners to its Washington DC-based team – Thomas Ward, who joins the firm’s Banking and Financial Services Group, and Ranah Esmaili, who joins the Securities Enforcement and Regulatory practice.
Ward previously served as Enforcement Director at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), and was responsible for enforcing more than 20 enumerated consumer financial statutes and the Consumer Financial Protection Act. He established and supervised the strategy in hundreds of active investigations and cases prosecuted by the CFPB’s Office of Enforcement and managed the agency’s 165 enforcement trial lawyers, investigators, and staff. During his tenure, Ward commissioned and directed an initiative to review and centralise the Office of Enforcement’s investigative, litigation, and negotiation processes and best practices, establishing the roadmap that the Office of Enforcement uses in each of its cases and investigations. Under his leadership, in 2020, the CFPB brought the second highest number of enforcement actions since its inception, secured its fourth highest amount of redress, prosecuted its largest and most complex litigation docket, and recommitted to enforcing the Fair Lending laws, including filing the first contested Fair Lending action in the CFPB’s history.
“Tom’s service as the Enforcement Director of the CFPB will be an enormous benefit to our clients in their compliance efforts at a time when CFPB enforcement activity is expected to increase substantially,” said Joel Feinberg, global leader of Sidley’s Banking and Financial Services Group.
Esmaili is a former Assistant Director in the Enforcement Division of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), where she oversaw investigations into the asset management industry concerning investment strategies contrary to disclosures, undisclosed affiliated transactions and misleading performance history, undisclosed fees and compensation, and undisclosed conflicts arising from side-by-side management. The statutes and rules Esmaili enforced pertained to investment advisors, private equity firms, hedge funds, registered investment companies, venture capital firms, and separately managed accounts.
“Ranah played a major role in drafting Division of Enforcement guidance on the SEC’s Regulation Best Interest, the fiduciary standard and Form CRS regulatory requirements, so her intimate knowledge of these regulations complements Sidley’s leading regulatory capabilities and will greatly benefit our clients as they navigate the complex securities regulatory landscape,” says Neal Sullivan, chair of Sidley’s Global Securities Regulatory and Enforcement group. “Ranah exemplifies the top talent the firm consistently attracts in the regulatory arena.”
