Jenny Cieplak

jenny.cieplak@lw.com

+1.212.906.1674

Profile

Jenny E. Cieplak advises fintech and financial services clients on a range of corporate, intellectual property, and regulatory issues arising in connection with the development and deployment of new technologies.

Ms. Cieplak provides broad-based corporate counsel to start-ups, financial institutions, investors, and newly created consortiums. She advises clients on collaborative arrangements between users and creators of market infrastructure initiatives designed to transform sectors of the financial industry, including joint development, investment, and governance agreements.

Ms. Cieplak’s insights into the process of technology development, the needs of financial industry users as well as the legal issues surrounding the creation of new technologies and asset classes provide clients with a unique skillset and perspective.

Her work includes advising on:

The implementation of new technologies, such as artificial intelligence and distributed ledgers, and associated regulatory issues
The development and launch of innovative products, such as virtual currencies and digital assets, and ongoing compliance issues associated with the continued development and marketing of such assets
Complex joint ventures, including matters focused on entity formation, ownership structure, corporate governance, intellectual property ownership and use, and exit strategies
Collaborative technology development arrangements, including joint development and turnkey platform operation agreements
Investments in technology startups, including performance-based warrants and other related commercial arrangements
The creation, operation, governance, and sale of electronic trading platforms, exchanges, swap execution facilities, clearinghouses, and data repositories

Experience

Ms. Cieplak’s experience includes advising:

Coinbase in its entry into a new strategic and commercial relationship with Circle related to the stablecoin USDC, including acquisition of an equity interest in Circle and entry into new commercial agreements for the sharing of USDC interest revenues and for the use of Circle’s USDC services
A major cryptocurrency exchange in its acquisition of the assets of the bankruptcy estate of another cryptocurrency exchange, including review of regulatory issues and customer contracts
Represented numerous clients in connection with the provision of cryptocurrency services to both institutional and retail customers, including advice regarding required registrations and associated regulatory requirements and commercial contract matters
Bank of America, Citi, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo in the creation of Octaura, a new data-driven solution for trading of loans and CLOs, with Moody’s Analytics as co-investor and commercial partner, and ongoing representation of Octaura as outside general counsel
Bank of America, Citi, Credit Suisse and J.P. Morgan in the creation of Versana, a new blockchain-based platform for sharing syndicated loan data, and ongoing representation of Versana as outside general counsel
Leading financial industry participants (including leading crypto investment funds, market makers, investment banks and financial infrastructure providers) in numerous strategic investments and acquisitions, such as:
- ParaFi Capital in numerous investments in the digital asset space, including ConsenSys, OnJuno and Oxio
- Jump Trading in numerous investments in the digital asset space, including Aptos and Kucoin
- Goldman Sachs in its investment in Anchorage Digital, a platform that provides custody, trading, staking and financing services to digital asset investors
- Goldman Sachs in its investment in Fnality, a fintech focused on building blockchain-based wholesale payment systems to support the adoption of tokenised assets and marketplaces
Bank of America, Barclays, Citi, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, Morgan Stanley and UBS in their investment in Capital Markets Gateway and ongoing representation of the consortium in their regulatory review of CMG’s technology for public offerings
Jump Trading in its arrangements with the Solana Foundation to develop a new validator client
Avery Dennison in its integration with the Hedera blockchain and receipt of a grant of HBAR in exchange for meeting connectivity milestones
A consortium of banks, including ABN AMRO Clearing, Bank of America, Barclays, Citi, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, Morgan Stanley, and UBS, in the creation of a new company and the acquisition by this new company of FIA Tech from The Futures Industry Association
Bank of America, Barclays, BNP Paribas, Citi, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, and Morgan Stanley in the creation of DirectBooks, a new platform to optimize the issuance process for fixed income instruments, and ongoing representation of DirectBooks in technology and regulatory matters
R3 on creating its enterprise licensing structure and a framework for operating business networks using its blockchain-inspired technology*
Goldman Sachs in the spinout of SIMON Markets, an electronic platform for the distribution of structured investment products, and the sale of an equity stake in SIMON to Barclays, Credit Suisse’s NEXT Investors, HSBC, J.P. Morgan, Prudential and Wells Fargo*
BlackRock as a development partner with Intercontinental Exchange to create a centralized industry platform to facilitate creation and redemption orders for exchange-traded funds*
FXSpotStream — a multibank FX price aggregation service in which Bank of America Merrill Lynch, BNP Paribas, Citi, Commerzbank, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, J.P. Morgan, Morgan Stanley, and UBS act as liquidity providers — on a variety of matters as outside general counsel