Amir Fadavi is a senior director at K2 Integrity. Amir advises all types of clients—including FinTech companies, global financial institutions, and governments—on all manner of anti-money laundering (AML) and countering the financing of terrorism (CFT) issues, with a particular focus on complex matters related to economic sanctions imposed by key authorities, notably the United States, European Union, and United Kingdom. Amir helps clients design, establish, implement, and maintain strong and robust compliance frameworks. In order to improve effectiveness, Amir works with clients and leads sanctions gap analyses, risk assessments, policy and processes enhancements, and remediation efforts, as well as training and capacity building efforts.
Prior to joining K2 Integrity, Amir served as the global sanctions lead at Airwallex, where he led the company’s sanctions compliance program. In this role, Amir was responsible for redesigning, enhancing, and implementing policies, procedures, and controls as well as managing the company’s relationships with sanctions authorities in different jurisdictions. Amir was responsible for ensuring the ongoing effectiveness of the company’s sanctions program as well as conducting reviews to ensure Airwallex met all relevant regulatory requirements before entering a new jurisdiction.
Before his time at Airwallex, Amir was a member of the BNP Paribas Sanctions Compliance team. Working out of the bank’s Paris and New York offices, Amir evaluated the applicability of U.S. sanctions to the bank’s activities in its European markets and provided advice on permissibility of trade transactions with respect to U.S. export controls. He also provided guidance regarding EU restrictive measures, drafted groupwide procedures, and analyzed and assessed client risk.
Amir is also the founder of SanctionsExpert.com, a respected thought leader on sanctions and compliance. He has spoken at conferences such as ACI’s Conference on U.S. Economic Sanctions Enforcement and Compliance and has been quoted on sanctions and compliance issues on NPR’s Money Planet, BBC News, and Voice of America. He is a member of the NYC Bar Association and is on the Association of Certified Sanctions Specialists’ Editorial Task Force.
Amir has an LL.M., magna cum laude, in banking, corporate, and finance law from Fordham University School of Law and a B.L. from SBU School of Law (Tehran). He is admitted to practice law in New York. A native Farsi speaker, he is fluent in English and French.
