Bone McAllester Norton’s Banking and Financial Services Group has a diversified and comprehensive financial services practice. Our financial lawyers regularly act as counsel to banks, thrifts, holding companies and nonbank affiliates. Our attorneys in the banking law practice area regularly publish and speak to financial services industry associations and professional organizations, including the Tennessee Bankers Association.

Our exceptionally strong team of regulatory lawyers offers our clients a powerful combination of knowledge and experience.  With access to key decision-makers in the appropriate banking agencies, this understanding and expertise allows us to anticipate potential problems and address deal issues before they become more serious.

The Banking and Financial Services Group offers legal services in five principal areas:

• Transactional Matters
• Regulatory Counseling
• Corporate Governance
• Enforcement and Litigation
• Commercial Lending and Creditors’ Rights

Transactional Matters

We represent our clients in transactional matters, including mergers and acquisitions, stock and debt issuances and investments, strategic alliances and joint ventures.

We have experience in the organization of new banks; capital raising and securities law compliance; regulatory compliance; branch purchases; acquisitions of failed institutions; acquisitions of or by banks, thrifts, insurance companies or holding companies; and advice concerning permissible non-bank activities such as securities and insurance operations.

Regulatory Counseling

We engage in all aspects of regulatory counseling and representation before the financial institution regulatory agencies, including the Federal Reserve Board, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Treasury Department and the Tennessee Department of Financial Institutions, as well as other states’ banking departments. This work includes handling a full range of regulatory filing and processing matters, including complex applications, as well as federal and state securities filings.

Corporate Governance

We provide advice to senior management, boards of directors and committees on a wide range of corporate governance matters and issues relating to Board and Committee structure and operations.

Enforcement and Litigation

We provide advice to officers and directors of financial institutions on a wide variety of federal and state investigatory and enforcement matters, primarily concerning matters initiated by federal and state banking agencies against institutions or their officers and directors. We have also been engaged to represent special board committees, including outside directors, in connection with these types of issues.

Attorneys from our Banking and Financial Institutions practice area often work with attorneys in all of our firm’s practice areas, including Commercial Lending and Creditors’ Rights, Labor and Employment and Litigation, when assisting our financial institution clients.