In the News Archive

“This is a really important action for this court,” Ali Jaber’s attorney Jeffrey Robinson said to the D.C. Circuit’s three-judge panel Tuesday morning.

Robinson called on the court to decide whether it will be held hostage to the political-question doctrine that prevents courts from interfering in executive policymaking – one of the primary reasons cited by U.S. District Judge Ellen Huvelle for dismissing the lawsuit back in March.

On Monday, Dec. 12, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision clarifying subsection 1 of the bank fraud statute, 18 U.S.C. §1344, in Shaw v. United States. Notwithstanding a veritable ocean of case law, regulations and statutes that delineate the difference between a bank’s property and that of its customers, the court quickly pushed such technical arguments to the side, holding that — for the purposes of the bank fraud statute — there is no practical difference between targeting a bank customer’s funds and targeting the bank’s own funds.

For the first time ever, the victim of an apparent U.S. drone strike got a hearing in a U.S. court. 

“The court’s decision is in keeping with the long-standing principle that a fraud can be prosecuted under the criminal law even if the victim does not suffer a loss — which is an important distinction between criminal fraud and civil fraud,” said A. Katherine Toomey, a partner at Lewis Baach PLLC.

For two years, stock traders and the attorneys who represent them said the law surrounding insider trading was a muddle, with no one knowing what exactly is or isn’t legal.
The U.S. Supreme Court Dec. 6 said it had ‘‘easily’’ settled the question (Salman v. United States, 2016 BL 404795, U.S., No. 15-628, 12/6/16).

‘‘Going forward, even remote tippees of inside information are at risk if the government can demonstrate that the defendant knew he was trading on inside information and the chain of disclosure is sufficiently close, even if no money changes hands.’’ Eric Lewis, Lewis Baach PLLC

Both the speed and the unanimity of the decision sent a strong message re-affirming existing insider trading prosecutions, according to Eric Lewis, a partner at Lewis Baach, a Washington DC law firm specializing in financial crimes.

"It was somewhat surprising that the Supreme Court took this case," Lewis told ValueWalk, noting that it had been two decades since the high court took up an insider trading case.

Eric Lewis got a phone call from an old friend’s sister shortly after he wrote an op-ed in The New York Times in 2013 detailing his time playing under a high school football coach who was also a serial sexual predator.

That call ultimately led Lewis to take a turn this week as a journalist—a departure from his busy career as a prominent lawyer handling international fraud disputes, including representing Bernie Madoff’s investment firm in its liquidation—at his nearly 40-lawyer firm Lewis Baach in Washington, D.C.

The Appellate Division, First Department, recently affirmed the dismissal of various claims brought by New Greenwich Litigation Trustee, successor to the claims of two feeder funds in the Bernard Madoff affair, against various third-party fund administrators, accountants and auditors.

"If you’re a public-integrity prosecutor, and you’ve been doing that for five years, you know who all the players are,” said Anthony Capozzolo, a former prosecutor in the Eastern District.

A decision by the Supreme Court overturning the 4th Circuit's decision could "considerably erode" the American Civil Liberties Union's (ACLU's) challenge to H.B. 2 in Carcaño, said Elizabeth Marvin, an attorney with Lewis Baach in Washington, D.C.

The justices directly confronted the issue of race in their questions, said Jeffrey Robinson, an attorney with Lewis Baach PLLC in Washington. Robinson extensively worked on civil rights and death penalty cases and formerly worked at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, though not in connection with Buck.

"It's still their burden to prove their allegations, which right now is based on a lot of innuendo and leaps of logic," said Waleed Nassar, a partner at Lewis Baach, which represents two of the Saudi charities named in the case.

“The government is looking for the Goldilocks number -- not too high and not too low,” said Katherine Toomey, a litigation partner at Lewis Baach Pllc in Washington who’s not involved in the Deutsche Bank case. “They want a deterrent for conduct and punishment, but without putting a major institution out of business or costing jobs.”

The U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear arguments Tuesday in a case that could make it more difficult for federal prosecutors to bring some bank fraud cases, and may also help determine whether banks are legally owners of customer deposits once they are made.

"Had the government used the second clause to go after Shaw, there would be no case before the Supreme Court," said A. Katherine Toomey, the managing partner of Lewis Baach PLLC's Washington office.  "What seems the weirdest to me is that he was only charged under subsection one," she said.

Next week, for the second time in two years, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear argument in a case for the purpose of resolving a split in the circuits concerning the scope of the bank fraud statute — 18 U.S.C. §1344. 

Mr. Lewis said that “there is no there there” on the allegations of any Saudi government role in the attacks, given the kingdom’s long history of being at war with Al Qaeda.

“The notion that senior Saudi officials or the Saudi government had an interest in supporting Sept. 11 and the attack on the World Trade Center is patently absurd,” he said.

Anthony Capozzolo, counsel at Lewis Baach PLLC in New York who spent six years as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York primarily, agreed. He told Bloomberg BNA that one of the biggest reasons the government didn't go forward was because the Supreme Court's decision “eviscerated” the government's case.

The ruling made it “nearly impossible to prove attempts,” Capozzolo said.

“The Department of Justice views this decision as having a material effect on the way they’ve been prosecuting quid pro quo cases in the past,” said Anthony M. Capozzolo, a former federal prosecutor, who interpreted the McDonnells’ decisions as “a sign that they’re going to handle these cases differently.”

Such an apparent disagreement is not uncommon, said Anthony Capozzolo, a former federal prosecutor who handled public corruption cases in New York. But he told the Two-Way that the Justice Department's action is a "game changer" that could impact other public integrity cases.

"The government had a good case in terms of jury appeal," Capozzolo said. "But it appears the department's decision is solely based on the view that McDonnell's activity did not rise to the level of the standard in the Supreme Court decision."

Elizabeth Marvin, an attorney with Lewis Baach in Washington, D.C., agreed, saying, "A holding that the bill also violates Title VII [of the Civil Rights Act of 1964] is a logical extension of the Aug. 26 holding." However, she added, "It is far too early to predict an ultimate outcome."

Transgender individuals are feeling the brunt of the law, said Elizabeth Marvin, an attorney with Lewis Baach in Washington, D.C. 

"Because H.B. 2 will be difficult if not impossible to enforce, it will create a culture in which private citizens feel that they have the right and duty to be gender monitors in public restrooms," Marvin said. She cautioned that this "could potentially result in more violence and harassment directed toward transgender individuals."

Financial institutions should worry about the anti-money laundering (AML) issues that the UK Bribery Act (2010) gives rise to despite the law having been in effect for just over five years, lawyers said. The danger was thinking that because the law had existed since 2011, that compliance and legal staff have it figured out, they said.

Mr. Francos is quoted in the article.

In this exclusive Of Counsel piece, Julie Copeland and Mirella deRose, take a look at the “ABCs” of compliance.

Mr. Robinson's is quoted sharing his impression to the June 23 Supreme Court decision regarding affirmative action. 

Mr. Robinson is quoted in the article sharing his perspective on Justice Kennedy's decision. 

A U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Virginia imposed a below-Guidelines sentence for a Syrian-born U.S.citizen who pleaded guilty to providing equipment to forces opposing the Syrian regime in violation of U.S. sanctions laws.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Puerto Rico and the U.S. government may not prosecute individuals for the same crimes in a case that tested the limits of the territory's sovereignty, an issue that has become increasingly urgent as the commonwealth has struggled with a massive debt problem.

Mr. Francos is a contributing author.