Moorari K. Shah
Counsel
Biography
Moorari K. Shah combines deep in-house and law firm experience to deliver practical, business-minded legal advice. As Counsel in the Los Angeles office of Buckley LLP, he represents banks, fintechs, mortgage companies, auto lenders, and other nonbank financial institutions in transactional, licensing, regulatory compliance, and government enforcement matters covering mergers and acquisitions, consumer and commercial lending and leasing, equipment finance, and supervisory examinations and enforcement actions involving state and federal agencies.
He has significant experience negotiating asset- and stock purchases, start-up company financings, loan purchase and servicing agreements, debt sales, bank partnership arrangements for fintech platforms, and complex on-shore and off-shore information technology and business process outsourcing transactions with an eye toward navigating contractual, operational, and regulatory hurdles to achieve real-world business outcomes. Mr. Shah also has experience in real estate, asset-based, and unsecured financings, as well as enforcing rights and remedies against corporate debtors in nonbankruptcy workout negotiations. He regularly advises companies on California-specific financing topics, including new legislation impacting consumer and commercial lenders and lessors, and matters before the California Department of Business Oversight (DBO).
Representative matters include:
- Advised a private equity purchaser’s acquisition of a public company mortgage originator/servicer
- Negotiated a fintech platform’s bank partnership agreements with a state-chartered institution
- Represented a national bank in a loan origination outsourcing transaction with a foreign-based service provider
- Developed and oversaw the implementation of a nonbank financial institution’s compliance management policies and procedures
In 2019, the Equipment Leasing and Finance Association honored Mr. Shah with its David H. Fenig Distinguished Service in Advocacy Award.
Prior to joining Buckley, Mr. Shah was Managing Counsel and Director of Vendor Management for Toyota Motor Credit Corporation. Prior to working at Toyota, Mr. Shah was the Manager of Business and Legal Affairs for British Telecommunications (formerly Infonet), and an associate at a New York law firm where he represented public and private corporations in mergers and acquisitions, debt and equity financings, and commercial contracts. He began his career as an Assistant District Attorney with the New York County District Attorney’s Office. Mr. Shah received his J.D. from Boston University School of Law (cum laude) and his B.A. from Duke University. He is a Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP) and a certified Six Sigma Black Belt.
In The News
Moorari K. Shah honored by the Equipment Leasing and Finance Association
Moorari K. Shah received the Equipment Leasing and Finance Association 2019 David H. Fenig Distinguished Service in Advocacy Award for his significant contributions to the ELFA. Click here to read the full press release .
In The News
Articles & Special Alerts
"Commercial lenders brace for consumer-style disclosures in California and beyond" by Clinton R. Rockwell, Kathryn L. Ryan, Moorari K. Shah, and Frida Alim (Equipment Leasing & Finance Magazine)
In September 2018, California became the first state to enact commercial financing legislation requiring consumer-style disclosures similar to those required for consumer loans under the federal Truth in Lending Act (TILA) and Regulation Z. Senate Bill 1235, the common shorthand for the new statute...
Articles"Reducing the regulatory risk of merchant cash advances and factoring" by Clinton R. Rockwell, Moorari K. Shah, and Lauren Frank (Law360)
A growing number of courts and regulators have reached different conclusions on whether factoring and merchant cash advances constitute loans subject to state lender licensing and usury regulations, leaving many factoring companies and their clients without legal certainty about the nature of the...
Articles"Equipment finance: Understanding licensing obligations" by Kathryn L. Ryan, Moorari K. Shah, and Frida Alim (Equipment Leasing & Finance Magazine)
Licensing Considerations, Generally The applicability of state licensing laws may depend on multiple factors, including transaction structures, business entity types and whether the activities are appropriately classified as “commercial” or another type of non-consumer transaction. Although the...
ArticlesJeffrey P. Naimon and Moorari K. Shah Authored a Mortgage Compliance Magazine Article, "Divide & Conquer"
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB or Bureau) continues to expand its gaze, announcing this past April that it has begun implementation of a program to directly supervise service providers of financial institutions, particularly those that cater to the mortgage industry. As regulatory...
ArticlesSpecial Alert: Maryland Ruling Opens New Front in Battle Over Bank Partnership Model
On June 23, the Maryland Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court judgment holding that a non-bank entity assisting consumers obtain loans from an out-of-state bank and then repurchasing those loans days later qualifies as a “credit service business” under the Maryland Credit Services Business Act (...
ArticlesMortgage Industry Struggles to Avoid Vendor Management Land Mines
October 3, 2015, marked the official effective date of the long-anticipated, and widely dreaded, TILA-RESPA Integrated Disclosure (TRID) rule. Mortgage professionals have learned from a half-decade deluge of regulation that their TRID fate, along with almost every other aspect of the industry’s...
ArticlesThe Impending Impact of Section 1071 and Creeping Consumerism on Equipment Finance
John Redding, Moorari Shah, and Mitchell Grod authored "The Impending Impact of Section 1071 and Creeping Consumerism on Equipment Finance," which was published in the Winter 2016 issue of the Journal of Equipment Lease Financing. Section 1071 of the Dodd-Frank Act goes beyond consumer lending to...
ArticlesConsumer Financial Services Answer Book 2016
The fifth edition of the Practising Law Institute’s Consumer Financial Services Answer Book was published this month, with 29 Buckley Sandler attorneys contributing to this leading desk reference. The 2016 edition of the Consumer Financial Services Answer Book continues to provide practitioners...
ArticlesRegulators Turn Up Heat on Vendor Management
The vendor landscape for companies in the mortgage industry has shifted significantly in recent years. State and federal regulators have levied hefty and often unprecedented fines against a number of supervised institutions because of inadequate vendor-management policies and ineffective vendor...
ArticlesMortgage Industry Continues to Bear Brunt of CFPB Regulatory Burdens
In recent years, mortgage industry players have had to quickly adapt to the evolving regulatory environment. The latest scramble for mortgage lenders includes the downstream effects of pending rule changes related to disclosures required in implementing regulations of the Truth-in-Lending Act ("...
ArticlesSpotlight on Vendor Management: Mortgage Industry Continues to Bear Brunt of CFPB Regulatory Burdens
Mortgage industry players have had to adapt quickly in recent years to the evolving regulatory environment, and the latest scramble for mortgage lenders includes the various downstream effects of pending rule changes set to take effect on August 1, 2015, related to disclosures required under the...
ArticlesHigh Court Win is No Cure-All for Subordinate-Lien Market
Lenders in both consumer and commercial real estate markets have reason to celebrate the U.S. Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling in Bank of America NA v. Caulkett, (U.S. June 1, 2015), reversing a contrary ruling of the Eleventh Circuit. The court backed a second-lien lender’s right to maintain its...
ArticlesSpotlight on Vendor Management: "Brother's Keeper" Enforcement Pattern Becoming the Norm
Two regulatory enforcement matters announced in April offer a view into the current mindset of regulators in the ever-evolving world of vendor management. First, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced a $25 million settlement with a telecommunications carrier related to the...
ArticlesRegulatory Blue Pencil: CFPB Guidance, Enforcement Actions Signal Expanding Focus on Vendor Management
In April 2012, the Consumer Protection Financial Bureau (the ‘‘CFPB’’ or ‘‘Bureau’’) issued Bulletin 2012-03 (the ‘‘Service Provider Bulletin’’), a guidance document setting forth the CFPB’s high-level expectations related to the engagement of third party service providers by supervised financial...
ArticlesSpotlight on Vendor Management: Interpreting CFPB Guidance and Enforcement Actions
In April 2012, the Consumer Protection Financial Bureau issued Bulletin 2012-03, a guidance document setting forth the CFPB’s high-level expectations related to the engagement of third party service providers by supervised financial institutions. Since then, the Bureau has often referenced...
Articles
Education
- J.D., Boston University, 1996 (cum laude)
- B.A., Duke University, 1993
Admissions
- California
- New York
- U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
- U.S. District Court, Central District of California
Government Service
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Assistant District Attorney, Manhattan District Attorney’s Office
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Memberships & Involvements
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Mentorship Chair, South Asian Bar Association of Southern California
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CIPP/US-certified professional, International Association of Privacy Professionals
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