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Stefan L. JouretAssociate
617-406-4626 Direct Telephone Experience Stefan L. Jouret is an experienced litigation attorney who has handled a range of disputes involving complex financial services and construction-related disputes in a wide variety of state and federal courts. Stefan ’s recent experience has included representing design professionals in a variety of complex construction- and project-finance-related matters. His experience includes defending a large engineering firm in a $50 million securities fraud lawsuit brought by six large mutual funds against his client and a preeminent global investment bank relating to the issuance of municipal bonds to finance a waste-to-energy plant. In connection with this case, Stefan drafted a successful dispositive motion in Michigan trial court and later appellate briefs contributing to the decision being affirmed by the Michigan Court of Appeals. He also successfully opposed the plaintiffs’ effort to strike limitations defenses by briefing and arguing the matter in New York State Supreme Court. In another matter, Stefan successfully defended a large engineering firm in a $40 million federal court action in which the FDIC (as receiver for the Bank of New England) sued his client and a national law firm over the financing of a New York cogeneration power plant. Stefan previously served as Majority Counsel to the Committee on Banking and Financial Services of the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington, DC, where he was assigned principally to the Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Securities and Government-Sponsored Enterprises. As a Committee staff member, Stefan was involved in the development and passage of several significant pieces of financial services legislation, including the "Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act" ("GLBA") (the Financial Modernization Act of 1999) and the Credit Union Membership Access Act of 1998. The GLBA, often considered to be among the most important banking legislation since the Great Depression, has resulted in the promulgation of extensive federal regulations affecting the way many firms do business with respect to “privacy-related” issues and a host of other topics. It has been cited in more than 100 court decisions. Among other things, the GLBA modified portions of the Bank Holding Company Act to allow affiliations between banks and insurance underwriters. Additionally, although it preserved the authority of states to regulate insurance, the GLBA prohibited state actions that have the effect of preventing bank-affiliated firms from selling insurance on equal footing with other insurance agents. The GLBA also created a new financial holding company authorized to underwrite and sell insurance and securities products, conduct both commercial and merchant banking, invest in real estate and participate in other "complimentary activities." As a Committee counsel, Stefan was also part of a small working group of House, Senate, U.S. Treasury Department and other federal agency officials that crafted the Credit Union Membership Access Act of 1998 (the "CUMAA"). The CUMAA legislatively overturned the holding in National Credit Union Admin. v. First Nat’l Bank & Trust Co., 522 U.S. 479 (1998) and made significant changes to the Federal Credit Union Act of 1934 concerning both the membership criteria and the general regulation of federal credit unions. Stefan’s role for the Committee also provided him with exposure to a variety of issues affecting government-sponsored enterprises (such as Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks) as well as issues relating to the accounting-standard-setting process by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (“FASB”). After leaving Capitol Hill, Stefan was affiliated with a Washington, DC law firm where he represented principally thrift institution clients seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in breach of contract actions against the federal government in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. The legal theories supporting these claims, which related to the 1989 S&L “bailout” legislation known as the Financial Institutions Reform Recovery and Enforcement Act of 1989 (“FIRREA”), were validated by that firm’s successful representation of one of three lead appellees before the Supreme Court of the United States in the landmark government contracts case United States v. Winstar, 518 U.S. 839 (1996), which has been cited in more than 800 subsequent state and federal court decisions.Admitted to Practice
Education
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