Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner

Finance Transactions

Partner - Corporate and Finance Transactions

Ken Achenbach’s deep experience in the regulated financial services industries, as well as his experience with sophisticated approaches to M&A and operational risk allocation through insurance and indemnity arrangements make Ken uniquely positioned to assist his clients in overcoming obstacles and meeting their business objectives.

Ken routinely advises banks, trust companies, payment processors, and other financial services and technology companies on critical strategic initiatives, often involving the development and launch of new products and services, including Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) treasury management or depository services arrangements, credit or payment platform arrangements, digital asset custody and emerging technology such as DeFi/Web3 solutions.

Ken’s practice spans a variety of traditional industry verticals, and Ken’s broad experience enables him to provide effective, business-focused, solutions-oriented advice with respect to the navigation of extant banking, custodial, and payments legal and regulatory frameworks, helping his clients to develop structural and practical approaches to managing commercial and regulatory risk and, where necessary, to procure necessary licenses or financial institution charters or respond to regulatory inquiry. Ken also has extensive experience representing individual officers, directors, and stakeholders of financial institutions facing regulatory inquiry or scrutiny, whether as a result of past service or in anticipation of future service, and has served as independent counsel to boards of directors and audit and special committees in connection with investigations and other special matters.  Additionally, Ken has also served as special counsel to a state regulatory agency, and has a deep understanding of the regulator’s perspective, giving him insight into the efficient resolution of regulatory issues.

Ken’s practice also includes advising clients with M&A matters and other transactions. He currently leads BCLP’s U.S. Transactional Risk practice, which focuses on the use of representations and warranties insurance (RWI), tax and other contingent risk policies, together with other coverage types and sophisticated indemnity arrangements to manage transactional risk both for buyers and sellers. He has represented both strategic and private equity acquirers in the placement of RWI and other transactional risk products across hundreds of deals and competitive bid processes, and regularly advises sellers on ways to limit tail risk in order to maximize value. Ken and his team have investigated and successfully helped clients to prosecute claims and recover under RWI, fidelity bond, D&O, and other policy types.

CIVIC INVOLVEMENT & HONORS Guest Lecturer, Emory University School of Law PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS American Bankers Association – Associate Member Community Bankers Association of Georgia – Associate Member Georgia Bankers Association – Associate Member