Brian Y. Sung
Biography
Brian Sung is a partner in the Finance and Digital Assets Practice Groups and co-chair of the Derivatives Practice Group in Haynes Boone’s New York office.
He concentrates his practice in the areas of derivatives, commodities, prime brokerage, structured equity/margin lending, digital assets/cryptocurrency financing and other alternative investments. He represents banks, hedge funds and other financial institutions, borrowers, institutional investors and other corporate entities, as well as cryptocurrency trading entities and funds in connection with a variety of derivatives, hedging, structured products, repos, securities lending, margin loan, structured equity financing, commodities, project finance, data center financing, and real estate and other financing transactions and in providing related regulatory and interpretive advice. Brian received his bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth College and his juris doctor from Columbia Law School.
Brian also has experience working on a broad range of finance, M&A, private equity, securities and restructuring transactions.
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- Representation of investment banks, hedge funds, lenders, borrowers, hedge counterparties, energy companies and other end users in the entry into ISDA Master Agreements and a variety of hedging and swap transactions.
- Provision of interpretive advice on terms of new and existing ISDA Master Agreements, derivatives transactions and ISDA definitions, annexes and forms.
- Representation of investment banks in standalone and program total return swap and equity- and hedge fund-linked derivatives transactions.
- Representation of cryptocurrency institutional trading and financing entities in connection with a variety of physical and synthetic cryptocurrency financing arrangements linked to Bitcoin, Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies and stablecoins, as well as various indices or baskets.
- Representation of cryptocurrency financing businesses in connection with the development of trading and secured lending/borrowing platforms to facilitate long and short secondary trading, as well as retail-market products such as interest-bearing cryptocurrency deposit accounts.
- Advice in connection with mergers/acquisitions, new registrations and applicability of exemptions relating to new and existing exchanges, technology service vendors, introducing brokers, FCMs, SEFs, FBOTs, DCOs, DCMs, ATSs, broker-dealers and swap dealers for trading of OTC and listed transactions including options, bespoke and cleared swaps, futures contracts, perpetual swaps, binary options and event contracts.
- Advice on federal and state regulatory issues applicable to the cryptocurrency sector including existing, new and proposed CFTC, SEC, banking and FINCEN rules.
- Representation of investment banks, hedge funds, energy companies and other end users in plain-vanilla and structured currency-, rate-, energy- and commodity-linked swaps.
- Representation of banks and other market participants in risk transfer arrangements involving exotic or bespoke underliers, including options, swaps, bonds and other similar arrangements.
- Representation of investment banks and hedge funds in bespoke credit default swap transactions in OTC swap form and in credit-linked note form referencing a range of underlying reference obligations.
- Representation of banks, dealers and hedge funds on repo, stock lending and prime brokerage and custody arrangements.
- Advising banks, secured parties and other counterparties as to ramifications of the potential insolvency, rating downgrade or default of counterparties such as banks, hedge counterparties, insurers, custodians, trustees, borrowers and monoline guarantors under relevant transaction documents as well as relevant insolvency, banking and insurance regulatory regimes.
- Representation of collateral managers and institutional investors in connection with the workout and restructuring of various distressed and defaulted structured products assets and investments.
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- Recognized in Derivatives and Structured Products by Chambers Global, Chambers USA and Legal 500
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- "U.S. CFTC’s Cross-Border Regulation of Derivatives,” co-author with Edward Ivey and Miki Navazio, Futures and Derivatives Law Report, Volume 46, Issue 2 (February 2026).
- "The Importance of D&O Insurance for Companies in the Digital Asset Space," co-author with Peter Halprin, American Bar Association - Litigation Section, Insurance Coverage Litigation Committee, August 20, 2025.
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Education
- J.D., Columbia Law School, 2000, Managing Editor, Journal of Transnational Law; Parker Certificate (Achievement in International Law)
- A.B., Economics and Government, Dartmouth College, 1997
Languages
- Korean
- Spanish
Admissions
- New York
Sung in Bloomberg Law: Prediction Markets, Nevada Take Preemption Odds to Appeals Court
April 15, 2026