PHOTO: Maria Vullo has been nominated to serve as the superintendent of the State Department of Financial Services. Photo Courtesy of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP
By Michael V. Cusenza
She’s got some big shoes to fill.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo last week nominated Maria Vullo to serve as the superintendent of the State Department of Financial Services.
Vullo, who has more than 25 years experience as a litigator and manager, would succeed Ben Lawsky as the Empire State’s top financial regulator, the head of an agency that was created in 2011 by the merger of NY’s Banking and Insurance departments.
Nicknamed the “Sheriff of Wall Street,” Lawsky earned a reputation over the past four years as being relentless on banks. On his watch, DFS, among myriad other actions, levied more than $6 billion in monetary penalties against financial firms; disrupted terrorist financing for Iran “and other rogue nations”; and sounded the alarm on the threat cyber hacking poses to consumers and financial markets.
Lawsky announced last May that he would be leaving DFS to start his own consulting agency, the Lawsky Group.
“I am deeply proud of the work our team has done building this new agency and helping strengthen oversight of the financial markets,” Lawsky said.
Vullo, who earned her J.D. from New York University School of Law, and an M.P.A. from the New York University Wagner Graduate School of Public Service as part of its Executive Leadership Program, is currently of counsel at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, where she was a partner for 20 years. She previously oversaw the Economic Justice Division in the Office of the New York State Attorney General.
Vullo’s legal experience has included matters involving securities and other fraud, real estate, health care, insurance, tax, consumer protection, bankruptcy, antitrust, constitutional and environmental law. She was selected twice by the State Commission on Judicial Nomination as a candidate for Associate Judge on the Court of Appeals, and has argued before the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Second, Ninth, and Tenth Circuits, and the New York State Appellate Division.
Vullo, according to Cuomo’s office, is also a recognized leader in protecting women’s rights in a variety of cases, including representing women raped by soldiers during the 1992-1995 Bosnian War – a case in which she secured a $745 million jury verdict for the plaintiffs. Her pro bono work also includes representing abortion providers whose lives had been threatened via an online “hit list;” in that case she secured a $100 million jury verdict for the plaintiffs.
“Maria Vullo is a dedicated, tough and fair litigator with the right combination of public and private sector experience needed to lead the Department of Financial Services,” Cuomo said. “Maria has shown an immovable commitment to upholding the law and protecting consumers, and I am confident that she would be a strong and tireless advocate for the people of New York as Superintendent.”
