FTI Consulting, Inc. announced the expansion of its Forensic Accounting & Advisory Services practice within the firm’s Forensic & Litigation Consulting segment with the addition of two leading broker-dealer professionals. Christopher Chatfield and Anthony Italiano join as Senior Managing Directors and will be based in New York, where they will lead the firm’s Broker-dealer Regulatory, Governance and Disputes offering.
“The current regulatory environment leaves financial and securities market participants vulnerable to a wide range of complicated broker-dealer investigations, enforcement actions and regulatory compliance issues," said Paul Ficca, Global Leader of the Forensic & Litigation Consulting segment at FTI Consulting. “We are excited to welcome Christopher and Anthony, whose unparalleled market knowledge will benefit our broker-dealer clients at a time when the industry has come under increasing regulatory scrutiny.”
Mr. Chatfield and Mr. Italiano collectively bring more than 45 years of experience advising broker-dealers and banks on significant regulatory and compliance issues, including regulatory reporting, high-frequency trading, alternative trading systems, best execution, equity and fixed income sales/trading, retail sales practices, lookbacks, remediations and Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) Rule 15c3-5 Market Access, among others.
Over the years, they have advised a broad range of broker-dealers and banks, including broker-dealer affiliates of banks, insurance companies and investment advisers, as well as international, national and regional firms. While they regularly provide advice to clients who are engaged solely in broker-dealer activities, they also provide comprehensive consulting services to diversified financial services companies that offer investment management, wealth management, consumer banking and prime brokerage as part of their business.
Mr. Chatfield served as Associate General Counsel in the Regulatory Inquiries group for Bank of America Merrill Lynch. In this role, he focused on matters involving the broker-dealer businesses, including institutional trading, investment banking, research and retail organizations. He represented the bank in dealings with numerous state and federal regulators and law enforcement agencies, as well as abroad in Europe, Asia and Latin America. Prior to that, he spent five years at the SEC as Senior Counsel in the Division of Enforcement’s Office of Market Surveillance, participating in multiagency investigations involving accounting fraud, insider trading and micro-cap fraud. His broad-based regulatory experience also includes earlier stints at the Chicago Board Options Exchange, the American Stock Exchange and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.
Mr. Italiano joins FTI Consulting from EY, where he managed complex investigations involving the SEC, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, the Department of Justice and other financial regulators across broker-dealer institutional sales and trading organizations, as well as the Wealth & Asset Management and Consumer Banking divisions. Prior to that, he was a Senior Vice President in Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s Regulatory Investigations group, where he was responsible for responding to regulatory and governmental inquiries that posed significant legal, economic or reputational risk to the company. His extensive background in regulatory and compliance includes trading and sales, branch examinations, surveillance, supervisory policymaking, forensic documentation, e-discovery and expertise in securities, banking and investment advisor regulations.