Hunton & Williams has hired Juan Azel, Standard Chartered Bank's former senior legal regulatory counsel, to support its efforts to expand its global banking and regulatory compliance practice.

Azel, who has previously worked at Hunton and Williams, left the firm in late 2004 to become chief legal counsel of the BBVA Private Bank in Miami. He later was chief legal counsel for StanChart Securities International Inc. and then served as head of legal for Standard Chartered Bank's Private Bank and as senior legal regulatory counsel for Standard Chartered Bank. Earlier in his career he was an associate at K&L Gates and at Greenberg Traurig.

He has represented financial institutions as general counsel or as outside counsel on regulatory and compliance, financial crime risk management, and internal investigations and enforcement matters, with an emphasis on the U.S. Bank Secrecy Act, anti-money laundering, and economic sanctions laws and regulations.