David Stetson

David Stetson, a former senior lawyer at the US Department of the Treasury, Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and in-house sanctions lawyer at Goldman Sachs, advises clients and leads investigations on OFAC sanctions and related anti-money laundering (AML) and export controls issues. Drawing on his government and in-house experience, he focuses on helping clients apply rapidly evolving sanctions requirements across a broad array of products and services in the financial sector and beyond.

Dave helps clients understand where sanctions compliance risks arise, develop and implement best practices for proactive risk-based compliance programs, and navigate the enforcement process when potential sanctions violations occur.

As an attorney-advisor in the Office of the Chief Counsel at OFAC, Dave was involved in numerous enforcement, licensing, sanctions targeting/listing, and legislative matters, including the then-largest civil monetary penalty assessed by OFAC. He also worked closely with counterparts from the departments of State, Justice, and Commerce, and National Security Council staff.

After leaving OFAC, Dave spent more than eight years at Goldman Sachs, as global co-head of sanctions compliance for nearly five years and then as vice president, associate general counsel and senior legal director in the legal division’s Business Intelligence Group. In his roles at Goldman Sachs, Dave helped build an industry-leading global sanctions compliance program and served as internal legal advisor on sanctions matters for all of the firm’s business lines. He also advised Goldman Sachs on how to address sanctions matters that arose at the bank’s clients and portfolio companies, gaining detailed knowledge of sanctions risks and compliance practices across a wide range of business sectors.

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