Barnes & Thornburg LLP
With over a decade of in-house experience, Laurian Cristea counsels clients on a range of financial services regulatory, transactional, and compliance matters. Laurian offers a deep understanding of U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC)-registered exchanges and clearinghouses for any asset class including digital assets.
He provides legal counsel on the products and services financial institutions offer and on the complex laws that govern the industry. Knowledgeable and driven, Laurian advises on day-to-day compliance programs, governance, member and participant issues, product development and design, regulatory inquiries and audits, system safeguards and security, technology and connectivity, and the changing cryptocurrency landscape.
Laurian is well-versed in filing, acquiring and maintaining Derivatives Clearing Organization (DCO) and Designated Contract Market (DCM) licenses from the CFTC, as well as state money transmitter licenses and the Virtual Currency Business Activity License (BitLicense) from the New York State Department of Financial Services. He is also an advocate before state and federal regulators on novel issues.
Prior to joining Barnes & Thornburg, Laurian was chief legal officer and secretary at an exchange group focused on digital asset trading, where he directed legal matters and implemented regulatory strategy for trading digital currencies as spot and futures products. He also was an attorney for the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission; London Clearing House (LCH); and NYSE Euronext.