Draft:V. Gerard Comizio

Introduction
V. Gerard (Jerry) Comizio (born January 10,1955) is a United States lawyer and a leading authority on financial services law. He is currently a law professor and associate director of the Business Law Program at the Washington College of Law, American University. He teaches courses on digital asset law, U.S. and international banking law, regulation of financial institutions and business law compliance and ethics. Comizio is an author of two casebooks: Virtual Currency Law: The Emerging Legal and Regulatory Framework (Wolters Kluwer/Aspen Publishing 2022) one of the first major casebooks on digital asset law issues, and International Banking Law (West Academic 2016), one of the first major casebooks on international banking law issues. Comizio regularly appears on major television, cable, internet media, radio, newspapers, and other publications discussing current financial services law, policy, regulatory, and compliance issues.

Early Life
V. Gerard Comizio was born on January 10, 1955, the oldest of three children, in the Park Hill section of Yonkers, N.Y. to Vito Gerard and Delva Marie (Ciucci) Comizio. His father, a World War II veteran, had a masters degree in mechanical engineering from Pratt Institute and a bachelors degree from Baruch College, City University of New York, and worked for many years as a senior manager at United Technologies, a U.S. based aerospace and defense contractor. His mother was a music teacher and choir director her entire career at Catholic schools in Westchester County, N.Y.

Education
Professor Comizio received his master’s degree in global policy from the School of Advanced International studies, Johns Hopkins University in 2020, his LLM from the Georgetown University Law Center in financial services law in 1983, his JD from the Pace University School of Law in 1980 where he was case and comments editor, and his BA from Fordham University in 1977.

Career
In early 2021, following a more than twenty year career as an adjunct professor of law at American University’s Washington College of Law (AUWCL), he joined AUWCL as a professor and the Associate Director of the Business Law Program. He has played a key role in establishing the AUWCL Digital Asset Law Project, designed to foster a deeper understanding of the unique, novel and complex issues presented by emerging financial technologies. He also oversees the Business Law Compliance and Ethics Certificate program, which enables students with a special interest in business law to earn a certificate that provides a core competency and a deeper understanding of compliance law, one of the fastest growing areas of business law.

From 1981-1984 Comizio worked as an attorney in the Division of Corporation Finance, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, where he worked on a wide range of stock offering, merger and acquisition, proxy contest and hostile takeover matters. He was senior attorney there in 1983-1984.

From 1984-1994, Comizio was an attorney with the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, and its successor, the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Office of Thrift Supervision, during the height of the U.S. savings and loan crisis and its resolution. During his tenure, he held various legal management positions, including, Deputy Director for Securities, Deputy Director for Operations and Administration, Director, Corporate and Securities Division and Deputy General Counsel. For a brief period in 1988, he served as acting General Counsel. In 1994, Comizio led an interagency task force related to the U.S. Senate and House financial services committee hearings held in response to widely publicized abuses in the initial public offering market for bank mutual to stock conversions. This task force was credited with initiating comprehensive regulatory reform of this area at the federal and state level. From 1995-2007, Comizio joined private practice as a partner at Thacher Proffitt & Wood LLP, and from 1997-2007 was the managing partner of their Washington, D.C. office. From 2008-2016, he was a partner at Paul Hastings LLP and chaired their global financial services practice. From 2016-2021, Comizio was a partner and chaired the global banking practice at Fried Frank Shriver Harris and Jacobsen LLP. Comizio has written extensively about current issues in financial services regulation. He is the author of International Banking Law (West Academic 2016), one of the first major casebooks on international banking law issues. He is also the contributing author to three books on financial services issues: Winning Legal Strategies for Banking Law, Aspatore Books (2005); The Bank Investor Relations Handbook, America’s Community Bankers (2003); and The Bank Founder’s Guidebook, SNL Securities (1999).

Comizio also focuses on the emerging legal regulatory and policy framework governing virtual currency activities and other transformative financial technologies. He currently teaches one of the first digital asset courses in the country, which explores the emerging legal and regulatory framework under the corporate, securities, commodities, banking, money transmission, anti-money laundering, fintech, tax, and commercial laws governing virtual currency and block chain activities.

Comizio has also written extensively on a wide range of digital asset law issues including Cryptocurrency: Ukraine Crisis Shows Urgency for Federal Reform, Bloomberg Law, (March 16, 2022); The Cyber Threat Looming over Virtual Currencies, American Banker, (May 05, 2021); and Virtual Currencies: Growing Regulatory Framework and Challenges in the Emerging Fintech Ecosystem, 21 N.C. Banking Inst. 131, (2017).

Comizio has been featured in the American Banker’s annual “Washington Insider’s Survey of the 25 Most Influential People Involved in Financial Services Regulatory Issues.” He also has regularly appeared on television, internet media, and radio discussing current financial services regulatory issues, including NPR, Fox News, Bloomberg TV, Wall Street Journal Online, Dow Jones Online and CBS radio, and has been widely quoted on financial services issues in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, Financial Times, Reuters, Bloomberg and other major newspapers and publications.

Comizio has served as a member of the Governing Committee of the U.S. Conference on Consumer Finance Law, the Board of Advisors of the University of North Carolina Law School Center for Banking and Finance, and the Advisory Board of the George Washington Law School Center for Law Economics and Finance. He is also the former chairman of the Trusts and Investments Subcommittee of the American Bar Association’s Banking Law committee. In 2020, he served as a member of the Financial Institutions subcommittee of the Economic Policy group for the Biden-Harris presidential campaign. Comizio also serves as a member of the board of directors of Gifts for the Homeless, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing essential clothing to the homeless in the DC metropolitan area.

He is admitted to the bar of the U.S. Supreme Court, New York, and the District of Columbia.

Quotes in Prominent Media and Publications
April 29, 2023, CBS News: Relating to the failure of First Republic Bank and its acquisition: “No acquirer wants to buy a dead bank [without government assistance]. Look for some kind of deal that addresses the question of uninsured deposits.” April 25, 2023, Bloomberg: With respect to a proposed acquisition of bankrupt American crypto brokerage Voyager Digital LTD by Binance: “‘There are still a lot of very important and open questions about what ties there are with China. For Binance, this has become a regulatory issue on steroids because of the foreign policy aspects related to its ties of China.’” March 27, 2023, BNN Bloomberg: On FDIC granting First Citizens $70 Billion Credit Line for SVB: “This is not a typical deal term for an acquirer in these transactions to buy a failed bank… It really highlights the FDIC’s desire to resolve this situation by providing a potential liquidity hedge against SVB’s high level of uninsured deposits.” March 10, 2023, The Washington Post: On Silicon Valley Bank failure: “’The common theme here is regulators are not paying attention to banks related to crypto and private equity,’ said Jerry Comizio, a professor at American University’s Washington College of Law. ‘The question is: Why didn’t the regulators step in?’”

Personal Life
Comizio is married to Debra Comizio and has four children: Allison M. Cook, Joseph V. Comizio, Christine M. Comizio and Michael T. Comizio.