Cameron Kates

Cameron Kates is a Partner in Dentons' Corporate practice. His primary practice area is Fintech Law, maintaining a multifaceted practice representing technology-focused companies, investors and institutions.

He advises clients on commercial and corporate transactions, product development and regulatory matters. These transactions include financings, strategic investments, joint ventures, technology agreements and mergers and acquisitions. He also counsels clients on the corporate governance, securities and intellectual property matters that accompany them.

While he represents companies at every stage of growth across the technology spectrum, he has particular depth in fintech, digital assets and AI. He counsels clients on the emerging issues defining the next phase of digital markets and infrastructure, including how new technologies are built, financed, deployed and governed.

Product counselling is a key component of his practice. He supports clients building and bringing products to market in regulated or potentially regulated fields, working with clients to incorporate legal and regulatory considerations into the design, development, marketing and commercialisation of a product.

His counsel is informed by his experience as Chief Legal Officer and Chief Business Officer of a leading digital asset company, where he shared responsibility for its commercial strategy as well as its legal function.

His representative experience spans digital assets and blockchain (advising venture capital firms on digital asset and blockchain investments, strategic investors on a US$50 million minority investment in a blockchain interoperability and messaging protocol, and digital entertainment companies on private financings totalling more than US$400 million); commercial and infrastructure agreements (advising digital asset issuers, platforms and blockchain networks on trading, settlement, custody and staking agreements); and product and regulatory counselling (advising a global stablecoin issuer, a digital asset marketplace, a DeFi credit and structured-finance protocol, and cross-chain interoperability and oracle protocols).

His regulatory, investigations and disputes experience includes advising a client in an SEC Wells process on securing a closure letter, a cryptocurrency exchange on entering the US market in connection with stablecoin issuances, a cryptocurrency issuer on seeking a No-Action Letter for a token issuance and network operation, and an officer of an exchange in government investigations.

His fintech and financial infrastructure experience includes advising Thesys CAT, LLC, the technology provider selected by seventeen US exchanges to build and implement the Consolidated Audit Trail under SEC Rule 613; a capital markets technology firm on negotiating a "golden source" central clearing environment for futures trading; and a leading prepaid debit card provider on network sponsorship and settlement arrangements.

His corporate and commercial transactions experience includes advising a private equity firm on its approximately $3 billion acquisition of a data center portfolio and colocation business, Credit Suisse on a joint venture with Palantir Technologies to develop behavioural-analytics software, and a leading electric vehicle manufacturer on a late-stage private financing round.

He holds a JD from the University of Pennsylvania Law School (2015), where he was Associate Editor of the Journal of International Law, Vol. 35, and a BS, cum laude, from Pennsylvania State University (2010).