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By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bitcoin exchange itBit has hired Daniel Alter as the company's new general counsel and chief compliance officer, the firm announced on Wednesday.
Alter, who spent three years as general counsel to the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS), said there was no impropriety in his employment at itBit.
"The New York State Public Officers law requires that I have a two-year recusal before I can appear before the New York Department of Financial Services on behalf of the company," said Alter, who left the DFS in mid-February and joined itBit last week.
"And it will certainly apply to itBit. I will not step near or have any communications with the New York Department of Financial Services. Those will be handled by outside counsel or qualified compliance people within the company," added Alter, who is also an adjunct professor of law at New York University School of Law.
In June, Benjamin Lawsky, former superintendent of the New York DFS also left the agency to form his own consulting firm that will advise companies on regulation and other matters. Lawsky was widely criticized by the bitcoin community that he may have generated consulting work for himself by issuing controversial regulations for virtual currency firms before he left his post.
itBit also announced the appointment of Kim Petry as the company's chief financial officer. Petry joins itBit from her post as CFO of global operations and technology at Broadridge Financial.
Prior to Broadridge, Petry served as the CFO and vice president of global commercial/corporate card payment at American Express Co (NYSE:AXP).
itBit's new appointments are the latest in a series of high-profile additions to the company's leadership team. Sheila Bair, former chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Company, Senator Bill Bradley, and Robert Herz, former chairman of the Financial Accounting Standards Board, joined itBit's Board of Directors in May this year.
The New York-based exchange was recently granted a trust charter by the DFS.