Sheila Tendy
Sheila Tendy, a native New Yorker, advises corporations, not for profits and financial institutions as outside general counsel, managing a wide range of corporate and litigation matters. Ms. Tendy’s practice also focuses on operational risk, regulatory and corporate compliance, monitorships and independent investigations. Ms. Tendy’s practical understanding of risk and policy helps navigate clients through troubled waters to restore credibility and stay operationally sound.
She is a former counsel to the Department of Financial Services, as well as a former prosecutor with the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. Ms. Tendy has also worked outside of the practice of law in the equities divisions of global financial institutions on Wall Street, including S.G. Warburg and Deutsche Bank.
Ms. Tendy has handled a broad range of regulatory and enforcement matters including those involving failed or troubled banks, high-level insiders, money laundering, foreign exchange trading, foreign corrupt practices, loan fraud, hidden trading losses, and stock manipulation.
While at the Department of Financial Services, Ms. Tendy oversaw complex investigations of criminal activity in both foreign and domestic banks for enforcement actions and prosecution. She also helped create a multi-agency mortgage-fraud task force.
Ms. Tendy later spearheaded the Banking and Financial Services Group of an international investigative consulting firm where she helped banks and other financial institutions address a wide range of matters requiring independent investigations, regulatory compliance, interaction with regulators and law enforcement, and advice on anti-money laundering and risk management programs.
Ms. Tendy was selected as a Super Lawyer for the years 2013-2024. She received the prestigious Jeremy Epstein Pro Bono Award 2012 for her years providing pro bono service through the New York City Bar Association helping homeowners with distressed mortgages in danger of foreclosure. Ms. Tendy’s pro bono work has also involved representing underserved farmers in rural areas of upstate New York and elderly victims of financial fraud.
In 2014 Ms. Tendy received the Wild Goose Award from the Irish American Bar Association for her distinguished creativity outside of the practice of law. Ms. Tendy sits on the Boards of both the Irish American Bar Association and the Riot Relief Fund.
Ms. Tendy was recently featured on the Netflix series Bad Vegan for her groundbreaking white collar criminal defense of Sarma Melngailis by identifying the role of coercive control in intimate partner relationships.
Ms. Tendy has written extensively and her articles can be found in the American Banker, The New York Law Journal, The Huffington Post, Mortgage Banking Magazine, among other journals. Her articles have focused on fraud in mortgage-backed securities, treatment of religious organizations by financial institutions, the financial crisis of 2008, operational risk and policy issues, child protection in organizations with children in their care, and the disparate impact of guardianships on women. Ms. Tendy has presented on subjects including interacting with regulators during internal investigations, anti-money laundering compliance, and fraud in the secondary mortgage market.
Consider what might happen if a multibillion-dollar hedge fund suddenly found its huge portfolio of mortgage-backed securities was filled with bad paper. If it could not absorb the losses, the federal government and ultimately the tax payers, might be forced into a bailout, or the fund’s failure could launch a destructive tsunami that drowns the economy.”
— Protecting Wholesalers from Fraud, Mortgage Banking Magazine
Sheila Tendy, December 1998