Mr. Welch’s practice focuses on fair lending; laws governing unfair, deceptive or abusive acts or practices; sales practices risk; credit reporting; information privacy; and a wide variety of other consumer financial protection issues. His practice also includes transactional diligence; securities, class action and general litigation; statistical model review; safety and soundness examinations and enforcement; bank receivership director and officer litigation and enforcement; and internal investigations.

Mr. Welch represents clients before the U.S. Department of Justice, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Federal Trade Commission, federal banking regulators and state attorneys general. Among his notable recent representations are:

Wells Fargo Bank in connection with an inquiry by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau regarding sales practices, and other banks in sales practices examinations by the Office of Comptroller of the Currency and other regulators

Capital One in connection with a federal lawsuit regarding branch closures in Texas

Credit Acceptance Corp. in a lawsuit by the Mississippi attorney general regarding the origination and servicing of automobile finance contracts

mortgage loan investors in connection with fair lending testing of their portfolios and models

a model developer regarding model governance processes and model reviews

investors and financial advisors in connection with debt and equity transactions related to emerging fintech participants

bank officers and directors in investigations and litigation commenced by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation

Mr. Welch has lectured and published on various topics, including consumer financial services litigation and enforcement, consumer compliance risk management, fintech developments and the Dodd-Frank Act. 

Learn more about Darren M. Welch here: https://www.skadden.com/profes...

Formerly a Pentagon special counsel and chief cyber counsel to the U.S. Cyberspace Solarium Commission, Mr. Simon regularly assists clients as the lead investigator and crisis manager for high-stakes, cross-border incidents involving cyberattacks, data breaches and extortion, and AI, and handles related internal investigations and regulatory defense.

Mr. Simon has dealt with some of the most significant cyber incidents on an international scale. His experience includes advising victims of state-sponsored cyber activity, ransomware and other cyber extortion attacks, as well as breaches of health information, sensitive government information, intellectual property and personal data. Dual qualified to practice in the U.S. and the EU, he often represents global companies in connection with cyber incidents requiring analysis of breach reporting obligations under U.S. and EU law, including the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and investigations by European data protection authorities. He has counseled companies on major cyber incidents and incident preparedness across virtually every industry, including financial, health care, energy, chemical, defense and aerospace, telecommunications and hospitality.

Mr. Simon is known as a go-to cyber and privacy counsel to leading global private equity sponsors and their portfolio companies, stepping in to serve as cyber counsel and incident commander when portfolio companies face ransomware or other disruptive cyberattacks. He frequently counsels boards, C-level executives and other management as they address cyber vulnerabilities and breaches, and manage associated legal, regulatory and reputational consequences. In recent years, Mr. Simon has convened regular roundtables with CISOs, CIOs and CTOs from leading global private equity firms and their portfolio companies to assess trends and risk management strategies concerning cybersecurity, AI and privacy.

Learn more about David Simon here: https://www.skadden.com/profes...