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Philip Khinda is one of the nation's leading securities lawyers and corporate advisers. He counsels public and private institutions, their boards of directors and special committees, hedge funds, private equity firms and other financial institutions on risk management issues, regularly advising clients on preventive measures, and in dealing with governance disputes, corporate crises, shareholder and derivative litigation, and government and internal investigations. He also advises domestic and international enterprises on emerging securities law issues, including multi-jurisdictional matters and digital/cryptocurrencies. He leads the firm's SEC enforcement and crisis management practices, consistently delivering outstanding results for global clients across industries.
Phil’s leadership of the CalPERS Special Review, including its fee recovery of over $200 million for the nation's largest state pension fund, his negotiation of its strategic relationship agreements with Apollo Global Management, CIM Group and Ares Management, among others, and its public report on asset management and public corruption issues are notable representative efforts. He has successfully served as lead counsel to clients in many of the most significant securities and financial reporting matters over the last 25 years, including investigations and litigation involving Rite Aid, Enron, Adelphia, Global Crossing, Time Warner, Yahoo!, UBS, Credit Suisse, State Street Bank, AmSouth Bank, Wells Fargo, PIMCO and JPMorgan, among others, appearing before US and international securities regulators and prosecutors on their behalf. As is often the case in such matters, the biggest victories are those that never become public – the investigations and inquiries are quietly put to rest before any charges or claims are filed, or any related press appears. While Phil has served as successor and settlement counsel for a variety of clients, no institution or individual that he has represented from the outset of an investigation or inquiry has ever been sued by the SEC or indicted.
He maintains offices in New York and Washington, D.C.
Internal Investigations and Governance Matters. In addition to CalPERS, Phil's other investigative and asset management engagements include his service as special counsel to the board of the Bank One funds (now JPMorgan), whose investment adviser was named in the New York Attorney General's first mutual fund market timing complaint, and the board of the AmSouth Funds, whose adviser was "Adviser A" in the SEC's landmark action against BISYS Fund Services and others for mutual fund marketing kickbacks. The vast majority of his other special counsel and board engagements remain, by their nature, confidential. However, his work on two matters, later made public, is now reflected in two business school case studies ("Doing the Right Thing" on the Bank One market timing matter, and a Columbia Business School case study on CalPERS). He is also a fellow in the American College of Governance Counsel, and taught its Masters Class on internal investigations and special situations.
White-Collar and Regulatory Defense. Phil regularly defends public companies and institutions, officers and directors, regulated entities and others in matters before the SEC, federal and state prosecutors, and other regulatory authorities. He is well-known for the many government investigations and inquiries he has resolved for clients without any charges ever being filed, or any public disclosure of the government's interest ever being made. Those clients include a broad group of private equity firms and institutions, hedge funds, public companies, corporate executives, and public figures.
Diversity of Experience. Earlier in his career, Phil served with the SEC's Division of Enforcement and, earlier still, with Morgan Stanley & Company in New York. For the last 20 years, he has served as an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University, and published and taught on financial reporting and accounting, corporate governance, crisis management, securities regulation, and SEC enforcement matters. He is a frequent public speaker on these topics, and his work and legal commentary have been covered widely by the press, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Financial Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, Reuters, CNBC, and Bloomberg, among others.
Born in New York to parents of Indian and Swiss descent, Phil also actively supports diversity efforts and strongly supports pro bono initiatives. Among other matters, as publicly reported, he led a team of lawyers that investigated allegations of a "fight club" instigated by counselors at a summer camp jointly run by the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Washington and the Washington Metropolitan Police Department.
For years, he served as Vice Chair of the American Bar Association's Corporate Governance Committee, and as Chair of its Ethics and Investigations Subcommittee, a post he held for 15 years. Phil also previously served on the DC Bar's Global Legal Practice Task Force, and the Board of Trustees of the SEC Historical Society. Securities Docket has named him to each of its "Enforcement 40" lists, its compilation of the leading securities enforcement defense attorneys in the country, and The Best Lawyers in America and The Legal 500, among others, have repeatedly recognized him as one of the nation’s leading corporate advisers, and securities litigation and regulation attorneys. The National Law Journal also named him a “crisis leadership trailblazer” and one of the nation’s top crisis management practitioners, and he was also named to the Lawdragon “500 Leading Global Litigators” guide.
He is a graduate of Columbia College and Columbia Law School.
