Chris Baugher is a co-leader of Alston & Bird’s Payments & Fintech Group and advises on transactions involving payment systems participants and the financial technology industry. In particular, Chris regularly represents payment processors, sophisticated merchants, and financial institutions in the following matters:
Payment Processors
- Mergers, acquisitions, and dispositions of operating companies, payment technology assets, and credit card portfolios.
- International expansion initiatives, joint ventures, and strategic alliances in the U.S., Europe, and Asia.
Merchants
- Co-branded credit card programs, private label card alliances, payment network agreements, and card acceptance agreements.
- Credit card data security matters and data breach response.
Financial Institutions
- Merchant services alliances, card processing arrangements, and new payment technology M&A.
- Payments regulatory matters.
Chris is dual-qualified as a Georgia attorney and a solicitor of the Senior Courts of England and Wales. He previously served as the dedicated on-site legal counsel in Dublin, Ireland for a client that is one of the leading merchant acquirers in Europe. He has also spent a significant amount of time based in Brussels, Belgium assisting clients in the financial technology industry with cross-border transactions and matters related to credit card network membership and compliance.
He has been recognized as a member of “Georgia’s Legal Elite” by Georgia Trend magazine and has been listed in The Best Lawyers in America® since 2016.