Is the Financial and Banking System at Risk?

3:45-5:00 pm
Yorktown
Do unregulated financial markets encourage speculative behavior? Is more thorough regulation necessary to prevent crises from happening? A senior official from the financial sector will provide her insight on these questions.

Richard B. Berner, presiding
Chief U.S. Economist
Morgan Stanley Dean Witter

Julie Williams
Chief Counsel
Office of the Comptroller of the Currency

Remarks by Julie Williams Julie L. Williams was initially appointed Chief Counsel of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency in June 1994, with responsibility for all of the agency's legal activities, including legal advisory services to banks and examiners, enforcement and compliance activities, litigation, legislative initiatives, and regulation of securities and corporate practices of national banks.

She became Acting Comptroller on April 6, 1998, succeeding Eugene A. Ludwig whose term of office had ended. Ms. Williams served as Acting Comptroller through December 8, 1998, when John D. Hawke Jr. was sworn in as 28th Comptroller of the Currency.

In addition to overseeing the OCC's Law Department, Ms. Williams supervises the corporate licensing units throughout the OCC, including the Bank Organization and Structure division. As the Comptroller's top legal advisor, Ms. Williams is a member of the Executive Committee, providing advice and guidance on major issues and actions. Ms. Williams joined the OCC in May 1993 as Deputy Chief Counsel with responsibility for special legislative and regulatory projects.

Before joining the OCC, Ms. Williams served in a variety of positions at the Office of Thrift Supervision and its predecessor agency, the Federal Home Loan Bank Board. From 1991 to 1993, she was Senior Deputy Chief Counsel, responsible for regulations and legislation, corporate and securities law and general legal issues. She previously served as Deputy Chief Counsel for Securities and Corporate Analysis. She joined the Bank Board in 1983, after working as an attorney with the law firm of Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Kampelman in Washington, D.C. from 1975 to 1983.

Ms. Williams is the author of Savings Institutions: Mergers, Acquisitions and Conversions (Law Journal Seminars-Press, 1988), and has published numerous articles on the regulation of depository institutions, financial services, securities and corporate law matters.

She was awarded a B.A. from Goddard College, Plainfield, Vermont, in 1971, and a J.D. in 1975 from Antioch School of Law, Washington, D.C., where she was first in her class.

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