Christopher J. Bellini is a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and co-chairs the firm's Financial Institutions Group.  Mr. Bellini advises clients in the financial services industry concerning mergers and acquisitions, strategic investments, new products and services, legislation, government investigations and enforcement actions and regulatory matters, including privacy and risk-based capital requirements.

Mr. Bellini earned his law degree magna cum laude in 1989 from Georgetown University.  He received a bachelor of business administration degree summa cum laude in accounting and economics from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1983.

Prior to joining the firm in 1994, Mr. Bellini was an attorney at the Federal Reserve Board from 1989-1994 and a senior auditor at Arthur Andersen & Co. from 1983-1986.  He is a member of the Massachusetts and D.C. Bars and the American Bar Association.  He is also a frequent lecturer and author on matters relating to financial institutions.

Examples of his client representations include the following matters:

• Sale of a thrift to bank holding company;
• Acquisition of a national bank by a foreign bank;
• Acquisition of a mortgage banking company by a foreign bank;
• Establishment of a U.S. branch by a foreign bank;
• Negotiation of the functional regulation provisions of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act financial modernization legislation between the mutual fund industry and the Federal Reserve Board and other banking agencies;
• Advice concerning enforcement agreements entered into by banks and thrifts, including major credit card banks, with federal and state banking agencies;
• Negotiation of a foreign bank's strategic investments in technology companies; and
• Structuring credit risk recourse limits to reduce the bank capital required for loan sale programs by one of the largest U.S. savings banks as well as for loan purchase programs by government-sponsored enterprises from banks.
   

Mr. Bellini is an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center and currently teaches a course in International Banking.  Since 2005, he has been the Editor-in-Chief of the Banking Law Journal of the Banking Law Committee of the American Bar Association and serves as a Chair of the Committee's Legislation and Regulation Subcommittee.  Mr. Bellini was listed in the 2007 and 2008 editions of The Best Lawyers in America in the specialty of Banking Law.