Laura Magyar

Ms. Magyar has over 30 years of regulatory and financial markets experience and currently advises clients on all aspects of their activities in the financial markets, across products and jurisdictions. Ms. Magyar regularly serves as an independent compliance consultant in settlements involving the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, DOJ, and NYDFS.

She assesses and provides expert advice on firm compliance with regulatory expectations and best practices across jurisdictions including compliance with recordkeeping requirements, trade and communication surveillance obligations, culture of compliance, adequacy of supervision, swaps regulatory obligations, and anti-money laundering/know your customer requirements. Recently, she served as the compliance consultant for several SEC and CFTC registered entities pursuant to enforcement actions and other proactive registered entities, related to recordkeeping and communication obligations and use of unapproved communication channels.

Earlier in her career, she served as a branch chief in the SEC’s Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations for fifteen years, where she oversaw inspections of broker-dealers and investment advisers for compliance with SEC and FINRA rules and regulations. She led teams conducting analysis of firms’ processes and policies for regulatory compliance (through monitoring and testing of controls), conducted legal analysis of firms’ adherence to obligations, and conducted risk-targeted examinations to inform policy.

Ms. Magyar worked on matters touching on many of the SEC’s examination program’s priorities, including sales practices, trade and communication surveillance, best execution, Regulation SHO, foreign-domiciled U.S.-registered broker-dealers, and anti-money-laundering compliance, among other high-profile issues.

During her tenure at the SEC, Ms. Magyar was seconded to the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority, where she investigated potential rigging of foreign-exchange benchmarks, supervised UK affiliates of U.S. banks, and served as a liaison with the SEC.

Previously, she worked at Promontory Financial Group on securities markets issues. Prior to joining the SEC, Ms. Magyar spent several years in the private sector. She served as an associate at Bellows and Bellows, P.C. in Chicago, where she represented a number of broker-dealers and registered representatives in regulatory matters involving the National Association of Securities Dealers. She gained firsthand experience of the financial industry while working for seven years at Merrill Lynch, Pierce Fenner & Smith Inc., and Howe Barnes Investments Inc.

Ms. Magyar received her J.D. from Chicago-Kent College of Law and her undergraduate degree from Northwestern University.