FCPA Enforcement Trends & Predictions (2019 Update)

Lillian Howard Potter's practice focuses on government and internal corporate investigations. She has particular experience in matters involving the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).

Ms. Potter has extensive experience with complex investigations and has represented major corporations in a variety of criminal and civil investigations by US government agencies and other investigative bodies and commissions. She has worked on FCPA enforcement matters involving the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission, as well as anti-corruption enforcement matters involving foreign law enforcement authorities, the World Bank and the United Nations. Ms. Potter has handled internal FCPA investigations into conduct in the United States, Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America.

In addition to her work on anti-corruption investigations and enforcement matters, Ms. Potter counsels clients in numerous industries on a variety of challenging anti-corruption concerns, including due diligence in cross-border mergers, acquisitions, and joint ventures. She also leads internal anti-corruption compliance risk assessments and reviews, advises clients in developing effective global anti-corruption compliance programs and policies, and creates and conducts anti-corruption training programs around the world.

Ms. Potter maintains an active pro bono practice. She has represented immigrant crime victims in federal criminal proceedings, the United Farm Workers in their administrative challenge to federal farmworker regulations, and domestic abuse victims in immigration proceedings. She assisted the wife of a veteran injured in Iraq in preparing congressional testimony and filed an amicus brief on behalf of members of Congress in Winkelman v. Parma City School District, which established the legal rights of parents of children with disabilities. Prior to joining the firm, Ms. Potter was a Skadden Fellow at Southern Migrant Legal Services, where she represented migrant farmworkers in federal employment litigation.

Jay Holtmeier is a partner in the firm's Litigation/Controversy Department, and a member of the Investigations and Criminal Litigation Practice Group, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and Anti-Corruption Group and the Dodd-Frank Whistleblower Working Group. He joined the firm in 2004.

Practice

Mr. Holtmeier’s breadth of experience as a litigator includes service as a federal prosecutor, a senior in-house attorney and a lawyer in private practice. Mr. Holtmeier represents institutions and individuals in complex government and internal investigations and matters of corporate governance and compliance. He has particular expertise in matters involving the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). 

In FCPA matters, Mr. Holtmeier has represented clients in government and internal investigations involving conduct in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America and Australia. He regularly counsels clients facing difficult FCPA issues in a variety of business contexts, and he has assisted clients in numerous industries in developing and implementing FCPA compliance programs. He devotes substantial attention to advising clients on FCPA problems that arise in the context of mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures and other corporate transactions. He writes and speaks extensively on the subject and is a co-author, with partners Roger Witten and Kimberly Parker, of the leading treatise in the field, Complying with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (8th ed. 2013). 

As a senior vice president and principal legal counsel with the Reuters Group, Mr. Holtmeier was responsible for all litigation and compliance matters in North and South America. As an assistant US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, he tried several cases to verdict and led extensive grand jury investigations of various crimes, including racketeering, securities fraud, murder, narcotics and counterfeiting. Significant prosecutions included United States v. Jose Muyet, et al., and United States v. Ronald Ocasio, et al., related cases involving more than twenty murders, for which Mr. Holtmeier received the Director’s Award for Superior Performance from the Executive Office for US Attorneys, and United States v. Carol Bayless, which received national attention and calls for the impeachment of the presiding US District Judge.