Nicholas A.J. Wendland

Nicholas is a former general counsel and chief compliance officer for a global financial institution with trading operations in securities, foreign exchange, futures and swaps. Using his in-depth understanding of complex financial products, global regulations and clients’ business and operational requirements, Nicholas develops tailored solutions to their legal challenges while providing concrete, practical guidance.

He counsels clients on business and trading activities worldwide and institutes global processes and procedures that seek to ensure legal and regulatory compliance for business lines in cash equities, options, futures, fixed income, foreign exchange and swaps in numerous jurisdictions and markets. Clients he works with include broker-dealers, investment advisers, commodity trading advisors (CTA)/commodity pool operators (CPO), futures commission merchants (FCMs), introducing brokers, futures exchanges, swap execution facilities, proprietary trading firms and financial technology service providers.

Nicholas is a contributor to the firm’s Enforcement Highlights blog, which provides reports, discussions and analyses on noteworthy trends in the enforcement and regulatory activity of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and other agencies such as the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

Previous Experience

At the NYSE, as well as at FINRA, Nicholas managed and directed investigations and enforcement actions of member firms’ trading activity, developed trade surveillance systems designed to detect market activity that violated various federal rules and exchange regulations, and developed written supervisory procedures. In these roles, he managed and trained teams of analysts, advised staff, provided training, designed analysis procedures and metrics, drafted referrals to the SEC and FINRA’s legal department, interfaced with other global regulators, assisted with rule-writing and participated in cross-market surveillance initiatives.

In another previous role, Nicholas was general counsel and chief compliance officer for a financial institution with a global trading presence in equities, futures, fixed income, foreign exchange and swaps. He also served as an extern to Chief Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.