The onset of a corporate crisis can give rise to a diverse set of challenges involving securities enforcement and litigation. Those challenges often include government and regulatory investigations, as well as direct or derivative shareholder suits seeking damages in the hundreds of millions or billions of dollars. Effectively managing these challenges to achieve overall success across multiple proceedings requires a unique skill set. Coordinated management and messaging are crucial, as is dexterity in addressing challenges that may be unique to a particular matter without compromising a company’s defense across all matters. Accordingly, securing sophisticated and knowledgeable counsel to coordinate and manage an effective defense in a crisis scenario can significantly impact the outcome.
Morgan Lewis’s securities enforcement and litigation practice regularly provides multidisciplinary representation to public and private companies, financial institutions, officers, directors, and board committees facing major legal crises involving securities enforcement inquiries and investigations, lawsuits asserting violations of US federal and state securities laws, shareholder derivative actions, and congressional inquiries. Our practice has been consistently successful in representing clients in “bet-the-company” civil litigation coupled with regulatory, government, and media scrutiny.
We have been recognized by Law360 as a “Securities Practice Group of the Year” (2012). Our firmwide team includes a Law360 “Securities MVP” and a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, as well as numerous US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) alumni, including a former chief litigation counsel for the SEC’s Division of Enforcement, and a former director of the SEC's Chicago regional office.
While the problems presented by corporate crises are often multifaceted, our crisis-management strategy is always focused on attaining a single goal—achieving the client’s desired outcome. This singular focus, coupled with our comprehensive approach to crisis management, permits the client to keep its focus where it belongs: on the success of its business.