Hal Eren

Drawing on his reservoir of business, government, and legal experience, Mr. Eren's legal practice focuses on corporate transactions with a heavy emphasis on international banking, finance and investment matters, and related dispute resolution. Mr. Eren advises and represents corporations, governments, and other clients on a variety of financial and trade transactions, credit and other corporate agreements, sovereign debt matters, transnational investments, including project finance, and mergers and acquisitions. He also advises and represents banks, financial services companies, and other clients on regulatory matters implicating economic sanctions, U.S. export controls, U.S. anti-money laundering laws, U.S. banking laws, U.S. foreign investment laws, and laws governing business integrity. Given his years at the U.S. Treasury, Mr. Eren has particular expertise in dealing with the impact of U.S. economic sanctions and U.S. anti-money laundering laws on U.S. as well as non-U.S. banks and financial services companies, and advises such clients with respect to compliance and also represents clients in enforcement actions. Mr. Eren also represents clients in court; before tribunals such as those constituted by the World Bank’s ICSID dealing with the arbitration of international investor-state disputes; before the U.S. Treasury, State, and Commerce Departments; U.S. federal banking regulators; the New York State Banking Department; and other state banking regulators, and U.S. federal prosecutors.

From 2000 to 2002, Mr. Eren was a lawyer at the Washington, D.C. office of Clifford Chance, the world’s largest global law firm, where he advised clients, lawyers of the firm, and the firm itself on economic sanctions and other U.S. financial and international trade regulatory matters. From 1992 to 2000, Mr. Eren served at the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), the agency of the U.S. Government responsible for administering U.S. economic sanctions. His last position at OFAC was as Senior Sanctions Advisor.

During his 7 ½ years at OFAC, by country, Libya, Yugoslavia, Iran and Cuba; and by subject matter, cases involving international payments/clearing, complex international financial and trade transactions/arrangements, international loan syndications, and large-amount frozen assets comprised the major portion of Mr. Eren's portfolio at Treasury. Notably, in this regard, Mr. Eren had prime responsibility at OFAC with respect to policy and decisions affecting the apportionment, amongst successor states, of the London Club debt of the former Yugoslavia. At OFAC, Mr. Eren participated in the formulation and drafting of Presidential Executive Orders, UN Resolutions, OFAC regulations and guidelines; formulated legal interpretations, including interpretations involving jurisdiction; had significant responsibility with respect to the adjudication of cases involving exceptions to sanctions prohibitions and requirements; and participated in enforcement cases and the imposition of penalties for violations of sanctions.

Mr. Eren has more than 10 years of business and transactional experience gained in a variety of settings that he brings to bear to his practice of law. Prior to joining Treasury in 1992, Mr. Eren served as an executive of a real estate/infrastructure development company, as an executive of a U.S. bank, and in Madrid, Spain, as an executive of an international merchant bank concentrating on projects in Europe and the Middle East.

Mr. Eren holds a J.D. from the American University's Washington College of Law, and a B.A. degree in economics, and a B.A. degree in government and politics from the University of Maryland. Mr. Eren is admitted to the bar in New York, Washington, D.C., and Maryland, and admitted to practice before several major U.S. courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court and the U.S. District Courts in the Southern District of New York and Washington, D.C. He is a member of the bar associations of the three jurisdictions in which he is admitted, the American Bar Association, a member of the ABA's Section of International Law and Practice, and the American Society of International Law. Mr. Eren speaks French, Spanish, and Turkish in addition to his native English.