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Andrew J. Morris, a partner in our Washington, D.C. office, has extensive experience in securities litigation, government investigations and enforcement actions, and related complex financial litigation. His practice focuses on securities disputes and other financial reporting matters, professional liability claims including accountant liability, corporate governance disputes, and matters involving the SEC and other financial regulatory agencies. His cases typically involve issues such as fraud, securities statutes, financial reporting, professional standards of care, RICO, FCPA, conspiracy, and other financial statutes such as FIRREA. He litigates business torts and other commercial disputes. Andy has extensively litigated topics including loss causation, materiality, market efficiency, damages, director-and-officer liability, in pari delicto and class certification. He has experience in procedural settings including parallel proceedings, internal investigations, class actions, grand jury investigations, and actions by bankruptcy trustees and litigation trusts, as well as in PCAOB, FINRA, and professional disciplinary matters. He advises clients about issues involving audit committees and special committees.
Andy has tried numerous cases and argued appeals in a variety of federal and state courts, and has tried administrative matters and arbitrations. Andy served as a federal prosecutor and in the United States Department of Justice’s Office of Professional Responsibility.
Andy writes and speaks regularly about topics in enforcement and complex financial litigation; his writing is cited by courts, commentators, and scholars. He taught trial advocacy for the National Institute for Trial Advocacy.
Andy clerked for the Honorable Max Rosenn of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Andy holds law degrees from Oxford University and University of Virginia Law School and a B.S. from the University of Virginia, all with honors. He is a certified public accountant and an alumnus of Price Waterhouse.
Selected Representations
Steve Fagell represents companies, boards of directors, and senior executives in government enforcement matters, internal investigations, and shareholder litigation.
As a partner in the White Collar Defense & Investigations practice and as co-chair of the Anti-Corruption practice, Mr. Fagell focuses on criminal and civil regulatory matters presenting complex legal, political, and reputational risks. He routinely represents clients before the US Department of Justice, Securities and Exchange Commission, and other law enforcement and regulatory agencies. Mr. Fagell has advised clients in the life sciences, financial services, defense, technology, energy, and manufacturing industries on a variety of white collar matters, including those relating to foreign bribery, corporate whistleblowers, insider trading, accounting fraud, banking, government contracting, export controls, and transnational tax issues. He has led highly sensitive internal investigations in China, Russia, and elsewhere for Fortune 500 clients, and defended an individual in what has been described as the largest personal income tax evasion case in US history. The latter case -- United States v. Anderson -- led to a key discovery ruling that established favorable law for defendants embroiled in document-intensive white collar prosecutions.
Mr. Fagell is former Deputy Chief of Staff and Counselor in the Criminal Division at the Department of Justice. As a member of the Criminal Division’s senior leadership team from 2009-2010, Mr. Fagell was a key advisor to Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer on a broad range of litigation, policy, legislative, and management issues. He was integrally involved, for example, in the formulation of Division policy in connection with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, corporate and securities fraud, and other forms of financial fraud. Mr. Fagell coordinated the Division's work with the Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force and the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, and he routinely represented the Division in its interactions with the SEC, the FBI, and other key regulators and law enforcement agencies.
Since returning to private practice, Mr. Fagell has been a frequent commentator on the SEC whistleblower program under the Dodd-Frank Act, as well as FCPA enforcement and financial fraud more generally. He has been interviewed by numerous media outlets, including CNBC, National Law Journal, American Lawyer, Corporate Board Member, Corporate Crime Reporter, and Compliance Week.
REPRESENTATIVE MATTERS
Lee G. Dunst is a litigation partner in the New York office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. Mr. Dunst is a member of Gibson Dunn’s White Collar Defense and Investigations Practice Group. His practice covers a wide range of government investigations and white-collar criminal and regulatory matters, as well as general commercial litigation, including securities class action cases, accountants’ liability cases, and general business matters. Mr. Dunst’s extensive experience includes white collar criminal and regulatory investigations on behalf of numerous clients across the globe, including Fortune 500 companies, accounting firms, corporate executives, and special board committees. Mr. Dunst has a particular focus on matters involving the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”), including investigations of alleged violations and general compliance advice and evaluations. Additionally, he regularly represents major accounting firms in connection with regulatory investigations of complex accounting and audit issues.
Mr. Dunst has been recognized in The Legal 500 US for his work in connection with Gibson Dunn’s White Collar Defense and Investigations practice. The publication has described Mr. Dunst as “knowledgeable and responsive,” and noted that he “provides a broad range of expertise and regularly advises clients accused of corporate fraud and alleged accounting irregularities, as well as FCPA violations.” Mr. Dunst also speaks and writes extensively on white collar regulatory issues, as well as matters concerning civil commercial litigation. Most recently, he was appointed to serve as an Adviser to the American Law Institute’s Principles of the Law of Compliance Enforcement & Risk Management project.
He has represented various corporations, accounting firms and individual clients in connection with white collar criminal investigations by federal and state prosecutors (including the Department of Justice and the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office), as well as civil investigations by the Securities and Exchange Commission, the New York Attorney General’s office, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, the Public Company Accounting Board and various state regulators. His cases have included the representation of senior business executives and corporate entities in connection with criminal and regulatory investigations of various types of alleged corporate fraud, whistleblower allegations, and alleged accounting irregularities, as well as alleged violations of the FCPA. He also has conducted numerous internal investigations of alleged misconduct at many United States and international companies and personally has traveled to nearly twenty countries on five continents for these investigations. Notably, Mr. Dunst has served in major leadership roles in the FCPA compliance monitorships of Statoil ASA and Alliance One International.
Mr. Dunst also has been involved extensively in the successful defense of several securities class action lawsuits filed against major accounting firms, underwriters, and corporate executives in federal and state courts in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Maryland. He also has defended members of boards of directors in several litigations relating to their performance of their fiduciary duties as board members.
Prior to joining the Firm, Mr. Dunst served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Eastern District of New York from 1995 through 2000, and was involved in a series of significant criminal investigations and prosecutions. He led the investigation and prosecution of an international money laundering organization that operated in the United States and Switzerland, resulting in numerous convictions and the imposition of financial penalties of nearly $10 million, which he successfully defended upon appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. In another case, Mr. Dunst received the Director’s Award for Superior Performance from the Department of Justice for the successful prosecution of an insurance fraud scheme that resulted in the payment of $20 million in restitution. During his tenure with the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Mr. Dunst also served as the Deputy Chief of the Narcotics Section and was widely quoted in the national and international media, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and The Times of London.
Mr. Dunst has served on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit Pro Bono Panel and was appointed to represent pro se plaintiffs for purposes of several appeals to the Second Circuit. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of Democracy Prep Charter School, which has been ranked as one of the leading public schools in New York City. Mr. Dunst also serves on the Advisory Board of the Mount Sinai Adolescent Health Center, which is the first primary-care program in New York City specifically designed for the health needs of adolescents.
Mr. Dunst graduated magna cum laude from Brown University in 1986 and cum laude from New York University School of Law in 1992. Following law school, Mr. Dunst clerked for the Honorable Reena Raggi, then of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York and now on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
David B. Anders is a partner in Wachtell Lipton’s Litigation Department. His practice focuses on the representation of Fortune 500 and other companies in connection with the defense of regulatory, white-collar criminal and complex civil litigation matters. He also regularly advises clients in connection with internal investigations and corporate governance and compliance reviews.
Prior to joining the firm, Mr. Anders served as an assistant United States attorney for the Southern District of New York from September 1998 through December 2005. During his time at the United States Attorneys’ Office, he investigated and prosecuted a wide variety of securities, commodities, and other investment fraud schemes, money laundering, immigration, racketeering, and associated violent crime. He tried 13 felony cases to verdict, and briefed and argued numerous appeals before the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He was involved in several significant prosecutions during that time, including the investigation and prosecution of the fraud at WorldCom.
Mr. Anders is a 1991 graduate of Dartmouth College with an A.B. in government and graduated from Fordham University School of Law in 1994. He served as law clerk to the Honorable Denny Chin of the United States District Court in the Southern District of New York (1995-96).
Mr. Anders is a 1991 graduate of Dartmouth College with an A.B. in government and graduate from Fordham University School of Law in 1994. He served as law clerk to the Honorable Denny Chin of the United States District Court in the Southern District of New York (1995-96)
Mr. Anders is a frequent speaker at bar associations and professional organizations on issues relating to securities and commodities fraud and internal investigations. He was an associate adjunct professor at Fordham University School of Law from 1997 through 2006. In 2005, The National Law Journal selected him as one of the country’s top 40 lawyers under 40. Mr. Anders is the President of the Board of Directors of the Fordham Law School Alumni Association and a director of several non-profit boards. Mr. Anders has been recognized by Chambers USA: Guide to America’s Leading Lawyers in Business as a leading lawyer in litigation; by Lawdragon as one of the 500 leading lawyers in America; by Benchmark: Litigation as one of the leading litigators in New York and in the country; and by Best Lawyers and Super Lawyers as one of the Leading lawyers in the field of Criminal Defense: White-Collar Crime. Mr. Anders served on the New York State White-Collar Task Force, which was charged with examining New York’s white-collar crime laws with the goal of recommending legislative and executive changes.
Clerkships
Honorable Denny Chin, United States District Court, Southern District of New York, 1995 – 1996
David S. Krakoff is a Partner in the Washington, DC office of BuckleySandler LLP. Mr. Krakoff counsels corporations and corporate executives in all aspects of criminal and related civil and administrative matters.
With more than 30 years’ experience representing individual and corporate clients in high-stakes criminal and complex civil litigation and enforcement cases throughout the country, Mr. Krakoff’s experience spans a variety of SEC enforcement, grand jury, and trial matters, involving accounting fraud, securities, tax, foreign corrupt practices, public corruption, antitrust, healthcare, export control, False Claims Act, trade secrets and environmental matters. Mr. Krakoff’s experience includes federal and state trials, with primary trial responsibility in more than 50 cases. In 2009, he represented a former executive of W.R. Grace & Co. in a lengthy criminal trial in the District of Montana that ended in an acquittal of all charges. In 2011-12, he represented an individual in the FCPA Sting Case criminal trial in the District of Columbia that ended in a hung jury mistrial and the later dismissal of all charges by the Department of Justice. Mr. Krakoff represented the controller of Fannie Mae in parallel proceedings including an eight year securities class action that ended in summary judgment for the controller.
Prior to joining BuckleySandler, Mr. Krakoff was co-leader of the global litigation practice of an international law firm. In addition to his experience in private practice, Mr. Krakoff was an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia for 10 years.
Mr. Krakoff is recognized as a leading Litigation lawyer by Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business (2006-2015). In their 2015 edition, Chambers described Mr. Krakoff as "extremely thoughtful and imaginative in developing investigation and trial strategy." He was also recognized in Legal 500 as a "great lawyer and great guy." Mr. Krakoff has also earned recognition from Best Lawyers in America (2006-2016), Super Lawyers (2007-2015), Washingtonian Magazine Top Lawyers (2007, 2013, 2015), Who's Who Legal (Business Crime Defence 2015; 2015 Compendium), International Who’s Who of Business Lawyers (2012-2013) and Business Crime Defense Lawyers (2012-2013), and Best Lawyers in Washington (2006-2013). In 2015 he was named a Law360 Trial Ace and a National Law Journal White Collar Trailblazer.
Mr. Krakoff received his J.D. from Antioch School of Law in 1975 and his A.B. from Dartmouth College in 1971.
Practice Areas
Anti-Money Laundering & Economic and Trade Sanctions
Appellate
Bank Director & Officer Defense
Class Actions
Complex Civil Litigation
Counseling & Compliance
False Claims Act & FIRREA
Financial Crimes
Foreign Corrupt Practices Act & Anti-Corruption
Government Enforcement
Litigation
Securities Litigation, Enforcement & Regulatory
Troubled Banks
Whistleblower & Qui Tam
White Collar
Bar Admissions
District of Columbia
U.S. District Court (DC)
U.S. Court of Appeals (5th and DC Circuits)
U.S. Supreme Court
Gregory S. Bruch represents public companies, audit committees and special committees, broker-dealers, hedge funds and asset managers, accountants and lawyers, and other institutions and individuals in civil and criminal securities law enforcement, compliance and litigation. Mr. Bruch has been lead counsel for securities enforcement and related civil and criminal matters for many leading companies and financial services firms. He has served as corporate monitor, counsel to the corporate monitor, and independent compliance consultant for a range of subjects arising from SEC and DOJ settlements. He is recognized as a leading attorney in securities regulation and litigation, and white-collar defense, by Chambers USA (2006-2018), The Best Lawyers in America® (2007-2018), Benchmark Litigation, and other publications.
Mr. Bruch worked at the SEC’s Division of Enforcement for 12 years, the last five as an Assistant Director, where he was responsible for many of the agency’s significant enforcement actions concerning complex financial fraud, market manipulation, insider trading, and the FCPA. Prior to co-founding Bruch Hanna LLP, Mr. Bruch was a partner in the Washington, DC offices of Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP and Foley & Lardner LLP.
Mr. Bruch is a frequent speaker and panelist on securities enforcement matters, and has been quoted in numerous media publications. He graduated from Stanford University (AB History, 1982), and from the University of Iowa College of Law (JD with High Distinction, 1985), where he was the Editor in Chief of the Iowa Law Review and received the Legal Scholarship Award from the law faculty. Following graduation, Mr. Bruch was a law clerk to the Hon. George E. MacKinnon of the United States Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit.
Holly K. Kulka
EVP and DGC NYSE Euronext
Ms. Kulka is an Executive Vice President and Deputy General Counsel in the Legal and Government Affairs Department of NYSE Euronext where she is head of litigation, investigations and antitrust among other things. Prior to moving in house, she was a shareholder of Heller Ehrman LLP specializing in parallel litigations (criminal, regulatory and civil). While at Heller Ehrman she chaired the New York Hiring Committee and co-chaired the firm-wide Diversity Committee. Earlier in her career she was a federal prosecutor in the District of New Jersey where she tried more than a dozen cases and before that a special assistant to the Under Secretary of Treasury (Enforcement). Ms. Kulka graduated from the University of Chicago Law School in 1991, cum laude and was a member of The Law Review. Ms. Kulka clerked for the Honorable Phyllis A. Kravitch on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. Ms. Kulka serves on the Board of the New York Lawyers for Public Interest and Appleseed.
James Johnson is a litigation partner who focuses his practice on white collar criminal defense, internal investigations, corporate compliance and corporate crisis management in connection with internal investigations. Mr. Johnson is recognized as a leading lawyer in white collar criminal defense and is commended in The Legal 500 US (2007) for his ‘calm and methodical demeanor’ as well as his ‘clear sense of high ethics and morals’.
Most recently, Mr. Johnson was lead enforcement counsel for the team representing Toyota Motor Corporation and Toyota Motor Sales USA in connection with investigations into reports that drivers of certain models were experiencing unintended acceleration. The team resolved investigations being conducted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York and the attorneys general for 29 states and American Samoa.
Mr. Johnson has the distinction of having held several senior positions in the United States Department of the Treasury, including Under Secretary of the Treasury for Enforcement (1998-2000) and Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Enforcement (1996-1998). He oversaw the operations of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms, the Secret Service, the United States Customs Service, the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network and the Office of Foreign Assets Control. In total, Mr. Johnson oversaw approximately 29,000 employees and shared oversight of an operating budget exceeding $4.2 billion. Mr. Johnson also served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York (1990-1996), where he rose to Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division (1993-1996). During his tenure in the Southern District, he assisted in the management of the Criminal Division while prosecuting a wide variety of criminal cases, and was detailed to the United States Department of the Treasury to serve on the White House Security Review.
Since returning to private practice, Mr. Johnson has represented individuals, audit committees and corporations in connection with a wide variety of regulatory, enforcement and Congressional matters, and has taken on several high profile public projects. He now serves as Monitor in U.S. ex rel. Anti-Discrimination Center of NY v. Westchester County. He also led Governor Corzine’s Advisory Committee on Police Standards.
Mr. Johnson has received numerous awards for his service and accomplishments in both private practice and public service. He is the recipient of the Alexander Hamilton Award (the Department of Treasury’s highest award, given to officials for excellence in service) and the Attorney General’s Certificate for Excellence in Prosecution. Mr. Johnson was recently elected as a member of the Harvard College Board of Overseers. He is former Chair of the Board of the Brennan Center for Justice and is also a trustee of the Montclair Art Museum.
Key Experience
Practice
Katie represents banks, private investment funds, corporations and their senior executives in investigations and enforcement proceedings arising under the federal securities and commodities laws.
An experienced trial lawyer, Katie’s practice builds on nearly 12 years of experience as a federal prosecutor where she served in several significant leadership roles. After joining the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York in 2004, she prosecuted a wide range of securities fraud cases, among others, and was promoted to Chief of the Securities and Commodities Fraud Task Force in 2015 after serving as Deputy Chief for one year, and before that Co-Chief of the General Crimes Unit for two years.
During her nearly three years as Chief, Katie supervised a team of approximately 20 senior prosecutors in connection with some of the most complex and high-profile white collar and securities matters in the country. She led all aspects of the unit’s work from investigation through prosecution, spanning a broad range of matters, including:
Notable prosecutions brought under her leadership include a professional gambler charged with trading on inside information obtained from a board member of a publicly traded company; insider trading charges against individuals for hacking major New York law firms; corporate executives charged with honest services fraud; a hedge fund portfolio manager charged with trading on government secrets obtained from a political consultant; a hedge fund portfolio manager charged with the mismarking of illiquid fund assets; accounting fraud charges of an executive who manipulated a significant non-GAAP metric; and senior executives charged with a multi-year accounting fraud scheme at a publicly traded digital media company, as well as the market manipulation of the company’s stock. She also supervised the unit’s trials and appeals.
As an Assistant U.S. Attorney, Katie was an accomplished trial lawyer and argued numerous appeals in the Second Circuit. Among the high-profile cases she tried were U.S. v. Mandell, et al. (a $100 million market manipulation and investor fraud, which resulted in a 12-year sentence) and U.S. v. Ebbers (public company accounting fraud by the CEO of WorldCom, which resulted in a 25-year sentence). As Chief of the General Crimes Unit, she supervised the office’s new Assistant U.S. Attorneys, numerous investigations and dozens of trials.
Katie is a member of the Bharara Task Force on Insider Trading, a working group composed of eight leading experts on insider trading commissioned to develop proposals to update and improve the clarity of federal insider trading laws. Led by former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, the group issued its report and recommendations earlier this year. (Click here to learn more.)
Katie is ranked by Chambers USA, where she is noted for her “strong reputation” and her “broad criminal defense practice” and where clients have described her as a “really excellent lawyer — very levelheaded, so smart and really able to get into the details.”
Katie received her B.A. magna cum laude in political science from Duke University, and her J.D. cum laude from Harvard Law School where she was co-chair of the Harvard Law Review’s Supreme Court Issue. From 2000 to 2001, she served as a law clerk to the Honorable Karen Nelson Moore in the United States Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit.
Representative Work
*Matters handled prior to joining Akin Gump.
Speeches
Public Service and Affiliations
Recognition
Publications
MaryJeanette Dee is a partner in the Government Contracts, Investigations and International Trade Practice Group in the firm’s New York office. She is a member of the firm’s Executive Committee and serves as the Firm’s Co-Managing Partner.
MaryJeanette concentrates in internal investigations and regulatory and white collar criminal defense. Ms. Dee frequently represents banks, broker-dealers, investment advisers, corporate officers, financial advisors and other securities professionals in connection with domestic and cross-border investigations and inquiries by U.S. Attorney’s Offices for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York, the SEC, the CFTC, FINRA, the NY Attorney General’s Office, the FRB, the NY Department of Financial Services and other governmental entities and self-regulatory organizations. She has conducted numerous internal investigations into a wide variety of allegations, including insider trading, trading and position valuation issues, misuse of confidential information, embezzlement, money laundering and BSA/AML issues, sanctions compliance and retail brokerage sales practice violations.
Mei Lin Kwan-Gett is Citigroup’s Deputy General Counsel and Head of Global Litigation and Regulatory Investigations, where she supervises a worldwide litigation and investigations team. Prior to joining Citigroup, Ms. Kwan-Gett was a partner at the law firm of Willkie Farr & Gallagher, LLP, where she was co-head of the firm’s white collar defense practice group and specialized in regulatory and enforcement matters, internal investigations, and complex commercial litigation. Prior to joining Willkie Farr, Ms. Kwan-Gett worked at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York as Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division. She also served as Special Investigative Counsel for the Office of the Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Justice. She began her career as a Law Clerk in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
Ms. Kwan-Gett is a former Chair of the Board of Directors of the City Bar Fund and was a Vice President of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, and she is a member of the Practising Law Institute’s Board of Trustees
Mei Lin earned her AB from Harvard College and her JD from Yale Law School.
Nancy Kestenbaum is a partner in Covington’s New York office and is Co-Chair of Covington's White Collar Defense and Investigations Practice Group. Earlier in her career, Nancy served for nearly ten years as an Assistant United States Attorney in the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York. Over the past fifteen years while at Covington, Nancy has represented many companies, individuals and boards in a wide variety of criminal and civil enforcement investigations and internal investigations, including clients in the financial services, life sciences, energy, defense, consumer products and technology industries.
In the past several years, Nancy has been at the forefront of investigations of sexual misconduct and abuse. For example, Nancy represents the United States Olympic Committee and has led numerous investigations into these issues including for the Board of Directors of CBS; schools around the country such as Choate Rosemary Hall and schools in New York and California; and non-profits such as the Madison Square Boys & Girls Club.
Renee Phillips, partner in the New York office and Co-Head of Orrick’s Whistleblower Task Force, focuses her practice on employment litigation and counseling, with particular emphasis on Sarbanes-Oxley/Dodd-Frank whistleblower issues and internal investigations.
Renee has successfully defended employers in federal and state court litigations as well as administrative proceedings and arbitrations involving claims of discrimination, harassment, wrongful termination, whistleblowing, trade secret misappropriation and other employment-related claims. She regularly counsels employers on a variety of employment-related issues and assists clients in creating and implementing human resources policies, whistleblower policies, negotiating and drafting executive contracts, restrictive covenants and other employment agreements, and conducting internal investigations.
Renee is the co-author of the PLI treatise, Corporate Whistleblowing in the Sarbanes-Oxley/Dodd-Frank Era. She regularly writes and speaks on whistleblower and other employment topics.
Representative Engagements
Representative clients and matters:
Publications
Speeches and Programs
Admissions
Court Admissions
Practice Areas
Honors
Education
Clerkships/Externships
Richard J. Morvillo, a partner in Orrick’s New York and Washington, D.C. offices, is a nationally-recognized expert in SEC enforcement and other white collar matters. He was named by Best Lawyers in America as the “2013 Lawyer of the Year - Securities Litigation” and Chambers USA has recognized Rich as “one of the deans of the securities enforcement bar." Over the past 35 years, he has been involved in over 200 SEC investigations, including some of the highest profile cases the SEC has handled. He also has extensive experience in FCPA cases, securities related white-collar criminal matters and private securities litigation. A former branch chief with the Securities and Exchange Commission's Division of Enforcement, Rich represents corporations, corporate executives, brokerage firms, investment advisers, accounting firms, auditors, law firms, hedge funds and individual investors in connection with SEC, PCAOB, NYSE, FINRA, congressional, state attorney general and grand jury investigations; SEC litigation; and complex securities cases.
Steven Peikin was named Co-Director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement in June 2017.
Before serving at the Commission, Mr. Peikin was Managing Partner of Sullivan & Cromwell LLP’s Criminal Defense and Investigations Group. His practice focused on white-collar criminal defense, regulatory enforcement, and internal investigations.
From 1996 to 2004, Mr. Peikin served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York. He was Chief of the Office’s Securities and Commodities Fraud Task Force, where he supervised some of the nation’s highest profile prosecutions of accounting fraud, insider trading, market manipulation, and abuses in the foreign exchange market. As a prosecutor, Mr. Peikin also personally investigated and tried a wide variety of cases involving securities and commodities fraud, as well as other crimes.
Mr. Peikin received his bachelor’s degree from Yale University and a law degree from Harvard Law School, both magna cum laude. Following law school, he served as a law clerk to the Honorable J. Edward Lumbard, United States Circuit Judge, Second Circuit, and the Honorable Robert P. Patterson, Jr., United States District Judge, Southern District of New York.
Mr. Peikin is Adjunct Professor of Law at NYU Law School and a Visiting Scholar at Harvard Business School. He is President of the Board of Directors of the Center For Hearing and Communication, a non-profit health and human services agency that serves the deaf and hard of hearing.
Colleen P. Mahoney, a partner in Skadden's Washington, D.C. office, heads the firm's Securities Enforcement and Compliance practice, and regularly represents financial services firms, corporations, their boards, board committees, officers, directors and employees in Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and other law enforcement investigations.
Ms. Mahoney assists management and boards of directors performing internal investigations, often advising clients on preventive and remedial measures before and after securities-related issues arise.
Ms. Mahoney has been the lead attorney representing many of the company boards and individuals embroiled in signature SEC investigations. Her clients have included many well-known U.S. and foreign companies. As is frequently the case with SEC enforcement matters, the biggest victories are the ones that never become public – the government investigations and inquiries that are put to rest before charges are filed or an indictment is issued, or even before a public disclosure of the government interest. Ms. Mahoney has succeeded in bringing a number of matters to a close in those circumstances.
Prior to joining Skadden, Ms. Mahoney spent 15 years in increasingly senior positions with the SEC, serving as acting general counsel of the agency and as deputy director of the division of enforcement. During her tenure at the SEC, Ms. Mahoney helped manage a civil law enforcement program that addressed a wide range of issues, including financial fraud and disclosure, asset management issues, derivatives and insider trading.
Ms. Mahoney frequently lectures on securities regulatory and enforcement issues at seminars and conferences in the United States and abroad.
Ms. Mahoney has been selected for inclusion in Chambers USA: America's Leading Lawyers for Business, The International Who's Who of Corporate Governance Lawyers, Lawdragon 500 Leading Lawyers in America and The Best Lawyers in America. Since 2012, she has been recognized as one of Benchmark Litigation's "Top 250 Women in Litigation" and she also was named to the shortlist of the nation's top women regulatory lawyers by Chambers USA (2012). Additionally, Ms. Mahoney was included in Washingtonian Magazine's 2013 "Best Lawyers" list.
Elaine H. Mandelbaum was most recently General Counsel of Litigation and Regulatory Investigations of Citigroup’s Institutional Clients Group (ICG). She and her group were responsible for all litigation, arbitrations, internal investigations and regulatory inquiries and related investigations, sweeps and enforcement proceedings for Citigroup’s institutional businesses, including corporate and investment banking, sales and trading, capital markets origination, securities services, trade and treasury services and private banking. Elaine also was a member of the Global ICG Legal Management Committee. Prior to starting at Citigroup in 1997, Ms. Mandelbaum was a litigation attorney at the New York office of Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue, and previously at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison.
Elaine is the current President of the SIFMA Compliance & Legal Society, and has served on the SIFMA C&L’s Executive Committee for over a decade. Elaine was previously Vice Chair of the FINRA National Adjudicatory Council, the appellate body for decisions rendered in FINRA disciplinary and membership proceedings. Elaine serves on the Board of Directors of the Legal Action Center and of the National Council of Jewish Women, and was the recipient of the 2015 “Woman Who Dared” Award from the NCJW.
Elaine is a frequent speaker at PLI, SIFMA and other industry conferences on topics relating to complex securities litigation, corporate governance, internal and regulatory investigations and issues relating to women in the securities industry. She is an honors graduate of Yale College and of Harvard Law School.
Ms. Beamon, a partner in Davis Polk’s Litigation Department and a former federal prosecutor, has successfully represented individuals and institutions in their most critical situations.
Her matters have included grand jury, regulatory and independent investigations, representing companies, board of directors and individuals in connection with allegations of sexual misconduct, securities fraud, criminal tax violations, foreign corrupt practices, anti-money laundering and pharmaceutical marketing violations, among other areas. Her complex civil matters have involved allegations under the False Claims Act, consumer protection and whistleblower provisions, and other state and federal statutes.
Ms. Beamon also has participated in a number of confidential internal investigations on behalf of clients and has advised corporations and boards of directors on matters of corporate governance and compliance. In addition, the FBI requested that she train its agents on insider trading.
Ms. Beamon served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of New York, where she conducted numerous investigations and criminal trials.
Because of the nature of Ms. Beamon's assignments, many of her most successful matters have not resulted in public charges and remain confidential.
Ms. Beamon received her J.D., summa cum laude, from University of Pittsburgh School of Law and her B.A., with honors, from University of Notre Dame.
Peter Romatowski oversees the Firm's Securities Litigation & SEC Enforcement Practice and also practices white-collar criminal defense.
Peter represents U.S. public companies and foreign issuers, their directors, board committees, and executives, as well as broker/dealers, private investment firms, and law firms, in regulatory and criminal investigations of the full range of securities law issues. These engagements involve accounting and financial statement issues, disclosure matters, securitization of subprime mortgage assets, faulty earnings guidance, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act payments, recordkeeping and controls matters, insider trading, Regulation FD issues, mutual fund trading practices, and broker/dealer supervision, trading, and sales practice issues.
In his criminal practice, Peter has represented corporate and individual clients from four continents before grand juries, courts, and committees of Congress concerning all manner of suspected violations. He has served as a monitor selected by a company and approved by the Department of Justice to oversee the company's compliance with a settlement of FCPA charges and as U.S. counsel to an FCPA monitor for a foreign issuer.
As a federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York from 1979 to 1986 and Chief of the Securities and Commodities Fraud Unit, Peter tried cases involving insider trading based on stories that appeared in The Wall Street Journal, a successful manipulation that tripled the price of an NYSE-listed stock, and other offenses from narcotics to bank fraud. His defense experience includes jury acquittals on criminal charges of withholding pharmaceutical drug test results from the FDA and alleged false statements to the USDA in connection with a major food recall.
EXPERIENCE HIGHLIGHTS
AREAS OF FOCUS
HONORS & DISTINCTIONS
EDUCATION
BAR ADMISSIONS
GOVERNMENT SERVICE
Andrew M. Calamari is the Director of the Commission’s New York Regional office. He served as Associate Director and co-head of Enforcement in New York for eight years before assuming his present position. Before coming to the Commission in 2000, Mr. Calamari was engaged in private law practice for nearly 15 years, including as a litigation partner at Donovan Leisure Newton & Irvine. He has co-authored a treatise on Complex Litigation and is co-author of the securities litigation chapter in a Matthew Bender treatise on securities law.
Gregory Nehro is the Global Head of Employment, Enforcement and Investigations at BNY Mellon. He has overall responsibility for employment law and litigation, regulatory and enforcement matters, and corporate internal investigations. He is also a member of BNY Mellon’s Operating Committee, comprised of the firm’s top executives, which executes strategies and implements policies.
Gregory was appointed to his current position in May 2014. He joined BNY Mellon in 2011 where he has served in different senior roles. Prior to joining BNY Mellon, Gregory worked at Fidelity after serving as the Head of Litigation and Regulatory Affairs for Cowen Group, Inc., a diversified investment bank and financial services firm. Gregory also worked at Credit Suisse and Heller Ehrman where he focused on a variety of regulatory enforcement, securities and litigation matters. Gregory began his legal career as an associate at Shearman & Sterling.
Mr. Nehro received a B.A. from Colby College and his J.D. from Georgetown University law Center.