Thomas Rees

Thomas Rees is a Senior Managing Director in FTI Consulting’s Forensic & Litigation Consulting segment, providing client services in FTI Consulting's SEC Accounting & Advisory Services and Financial Institution Governance & Regulation practices. Mr. Rees conducts fraud and internal investigations for boards and audit committees, provides litigation consulting, expert testimony, and forensic accounting services to counsel, and assists clients respond to SEC and bank regulatory inquiries and enforcement actions. Mr. Rees has extensive experience researching and interpreting generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), with specific expertise in financial instruments and credit impairment. His experience includes assisting clients prepare SEC filings and accounting position papers, evaluate internal controls and resolve compliance and internal control issues raised in regulatory exams, enforcement actions or litigation.

Mr. Rees previously served as the Deputy Chief Accountant at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), a Division of the U.S. Treasury Department responsible for regulating national banks. In his ten years with the OCC, Mr. Rees held management positions in the Chief Accountant’s Office and the Treasury and Market Risk Division and was responsible for developing and interpreting supervisory policy relating to accounting, internal auditing, regulatory capital, capital markets, internal controls and risk management. He worked with representatives of the FASB, SEC, AICPA, and the Federal banking agencies to address emerging accounting issues and prepare comment letters on proposed accounting rules. He conducted safety and soundness exams of large international financial institutions and community banks and assisted in the on-site supervision of troubled institutions, including issuers of credit card and mortgage-backed securities. Mr. Rees also analyzed bank financial statements and disclosures, evaluating risk, the appropriateness of financial valuations and compliance with GAAP. He developed and led training sessions for Federal banking agency examiners on a variety of emerging accounting issues.

Mr. Rees represented the OCC on industry task forces that developed guidance on derivatives, securities impairment, loan loss allowances, securitization, mortgage banking, credit cards, internal audit, and other accounting and regulatory capital issues. He represented the OCC in discussions with international bank supervisors and the Bank for International Settlements about accounting and disclosure as part of the analysis and development of new capital rules for banks (Basel II). In this capacity, he worked with the Basel Committee analyzing international bank disclosure practices and authored papers about public disclosures.

Previously, Mr. Rees was a Vice President at MBNA America (now Bank of America) where he held management positions in customer service, account fulfillment, operations, audit and quality assurance. His responsibilities included loan approval, resolving client billing disputes, operations process analysis, and project management of various new systems. Mr. Rees also was the Chief Accounting Officer at Penn Mutual Life Insurance where he established accounting policy, oversaw the mutual fund and broker dealer operations, coordinated preparation of the company’s financial statements and managed relationships with external auditors, rating agencies and regulatory authorities. Mr. Rees started his career at Arthur Andersen & Co. where he was a Senior Auditor.

Mr. Rees is a Professor of Practice on the faculty of Lehigh University where he teaches Forensic Accounting, Financial Statement Analysis and other accounting classes to graduate and undergraduate students. He previously served as a professor at University of Maryland University College.