David Onorato

David is a Principal and member of the Global Economics Group Advisory Board. In his career, David has been involved in and resolved some of the largest litigation and regulatory matters in financial services history.

David’s prior experience as a global bank general counsel and major international law firm partner has provided him with unique expertise in how to meet regulatory expectations regarding a broad range of bank activities, including remediation, disclosure, and regulatory reporting regarding monitoring and surveillance systems; AML systems; financial crimes; loan loss reserves; data privacy and use of customer data; cyber security; sanctions; securities underwriting; client portfolio management; and a host of other activities. In his 35-year legal career, David has gained significant experience with the Federal Reserve, the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, state attorneys general, and the principal bank regulators in Canada and Great Britain.

Before joining our Advisory Board, David served as the General Counsel of Royal Bank of Canada, one of the world’s largest financial institutions. At RBC, David’s regulatory and advisory work included risk management, enforcement, compliance, litigation, and data use across RBC’s consumer banking, capital markets, and wealth management businesses. RBC’s corporate governance received international awards for excellence during David’s tenure.

Prior to RBC, David was a senior equity partner at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, a leading international law firm. At Freshfields, David’s work concerned international litigation and regulatory investigations for major banks, including the global regulatory investigations involving alleged price-fixing in foreign currency markets. David was recognized by Chambers USA in securities litigation while at Freshfields.

Prior to Freshfields, David was the Director of Litigation at Bank of America, responsible for one of the world’s largest portfolios of ligation and regulatory investigations. David’s work included negotiating Bank of America’s landmark resolutions of class actions and government investigations involving the collapses of WorldCom, Enron, and Adelphia, as well as claims by all 50 state attorneys general regarding the mortgage lending activities of Countrywide Financial Corporation. David was recognized as Global Director of Litigation of the Year (2008) by the Association of Corporate Counsel.

Note: David will not have an attorney-client relationship with Global Economics Group clients.