Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP announced that partners Martin J. Weinstein and Jeffrey D. Clark have joined the firm’s Global Litigation Group in Washington, DC. Weinstein and Clark most recently practiced at Willkie Farr.   

Weinstein will serve as head of Cadwalader’s global Compliance, Investigations & Enforcement practice, a similar role to the one he had at Willkie. His practice focuses on investigations, compliance and enforcement activity in almost every industry, spanning more than 60 countries. With more than 30 years of experience, Weinstein is regularly named among the top legal strategists in government enforcement and is recognized as one of the world’s foremost authorities on the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). He is described as “one of the deans of the FCPA regulatory Bar” by Chambers USA (2021) and has defended many of the biggest FCPA cases in history, representing major global corporations including Lucent, Daimler, Tyco, Teva, Juniper Networks, Alcatel, and Titan.

In addition to his FCPA practice, Weinstein represents corporations, organizations, and executives in a wide variety of other sensitive investigative and enforcement matters, including insider trading, fraud, whistleblowing, healthcare fraud linked to the Anti-Kickback Statute and money laundering. He regularly designs and benchmarks corporate compliance programs, conducts internal investigations worldwide, and counsels on a variety of foreign business practices involving export controls and related matters. He has led many complex high-stakes investigations and multijurisdictional enforcement defenses, has tried more than 40 cases and argued more than a dozen appeals. He has also been involved in a broad range of Congressional inquiries including investigations into campaign finance, international banking practices and complex global trade disputes.

Clark represents corporations and individuals in a wide variety of criminal and civil investigations and enforcement matters, including DOJ and SEC enforcement actions. His practice includes conducting complex, worldwide internal corporate investigations and providing advice to corporate management and directors regarding compliance and enforcement matters. He also counsels companies on designing and implementing corporate compliance programs. Clark focuses on Foreign Corrupt Practices Act matters, and also has substantial experience in other types of international business and white collar litigation.

“Martin and Jeff have been one of the most highly respected compliance and enforcement teams in the country for quite some time,” said Cadwalader managing partner Pat Quinn. “We have been steadily expanding our investigations capabilities in the U.S. and in London and now, with Martin and Jeff, we have established a team that is clearly among the transatlantic market leaders.”

Jason Halper, co-chair of Cadwalader’s Global Litigation Group, added: “Anti-corruption compliance is a key risk area for all of our clients with an international presence, and anti-corruption enforcement is among the top priorities of the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission. We also see increased enforcement activity by Biden Administration appointees. We believe this is an optimal time to expand our team and our capabilities for our clients with the addition of two of the top lawyers in the country in this area.”

Added Jodi Avergun, chair of the firm’s white collar defense and investigations practice: “I am delighted to welcome Martin and Jeff to Cadwalader. They add luster and heft to our roster of FCPA investigation practitioners in New York, Charlotte, DC and London and expand our deep bench of former federal prosecutors and enforcement attorneys.  They are truly exceptional lawyers, with few peers in the FCPA investigations space, among other areas of expertise. I am very excited that they will be joining our team here in DC and our growing transatlantic practice.”

Weinstein previously served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Fraud Section of the Northern District of Georgia, focusing his practice on international, corporate finance, government contract, and tax matters. Prior to joining the United States Attorney’s Office, Weinstein was a prosecutor with the United States Department of Justice’s Criminal Section of the Tax Division, serving as lead prosecutor in districts that requested outside counsel with special skills in investment fraud and white-collar offenses.

Clark was formerly a federal prosecutor with the United States Department of Justice. During his seven years as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the District of New Jersey, Clark served as the Deputy Chief of the Special Prosecutions Division and the Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division. In these capacities, he was responsible for overseeing all of the district’s prosecutions in the areas of public corruption, securities fraud, healthcare fraud, money laundering, immigration fraud, and terrorism. He personally prosecuted a wide variety of white-collar and public corruption cases, serving as lead trial counsel in numerous complex federal criminal trials.

Weinstein and Clark are co-authors of The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act: Compliance, Investigations and Enforcement, a comprehensive practitioner’s book covering all aspects of the FCPA.

“Cadwalader has a long, storied history in government enforcement, compliance and investigations,” Weinstein said. “This is an exceptional, established practice, and Jeff and I are looking forward to the opportunity to expand our practice and our service to clients.”

“As expected, we are seeing increasing government enforcement activity,” Clark added. “This is the perfect time for Martin and me to bring our practice to an elite firm like Cadwalader.”

The arrival of Weinstein and Clark follows the recent addition of a Leveraged Finance and Private Credit team consisting of partners Ronald Lovelace, Patrick Yingling, Jared Zajac, and Joseph Polonsky, as well as the arrival of Corporate partner Michael Pinnisi and Tax partner Andrew Carlon in New York and ESG finance and investment partner Sukhvir Basran and financial regulation partner Alix Prentice in London. Across the firm, in the last 18 months, Cadwalader has also added partners Kenneth Breen and Phara Guberman (White Collar Defense), Angela Batterson (Finance), Jon Brose (Tax), Mike Rupe (Financial Restructuring), Kiran Kadekar (Corporate), Helen Maher (Global Litigation) in New York; Michael Bergmann (Corporate), Peter Malyshev (Financial Services) and Mercedes Tunstall (Financial Services) in Washington, D.C.; and Matthew Smith (Finance) and Bevis Metcalfe (Financial Restructuring) in London.