Margaret Tahyer

Ms. Tahyar is co-head of Davis Polk’s Financial Institutions Group and a member of the fintech practice. Her practice focuses on providing strategic bank and financial regulatory advice. She advises banks, financial institutions and technology companies engaging in all types of deals and cases in traditional and cutting-edge financial regulatory topics, including corporate governance and supervisory relationships with regulated boards, the role of in-house legal departments in a banking organization, consent order remediation, bank chartering, payment systems, bank powers and activities, recovery and resolution planning, securities disclosure, capital and liquidity, cybersecurity and data privacy and attorney client privilege in the banking sector.

Ms. Tahyar has been engaged in financial services advice and regulatory reform since the early 1990s. Her clients include many of the largest domestic and foreign financial institutions, many regional banks and technology companies. Ms. Tahyar has worked on almost two dozen living wills for clients ranging from the largest and most complex organizations to smaller regional banks. During the pandemic, she has been deeply involved in advising clients on all aspects of the Main Street Lending Program and the Paycheck Protection Program.

From 1997 to 2009, Ms. Tahyar worked in the Davis Polk Paris and London offices. She clerked for Thurgood Marshall in the 1988 Supreme Court term.

In addition to her full-time practice, she teaches financial regulation as an adjunct Lecturer-in-Law at Harvard Law School and is a co-author of Financial Regulation: Law and Policy (2nd ed., Foundation Press), the leading textbook for law students in the area, and FinTech Law: The Case Studies (July 2020).

Professional affiliations

DAVIS POLK & WARDWELL LLP