People

Roger M. Witten

Partner

Witten, Roger M.

Roger Witten is a partner in the firm's Litigation/Controversy Department, and a member of the Investigations and Criminal Litigation and Government and Regulatory Litigation Practice Groups. He joined the firm in 1975 and became a partner in 1980. Mr. Witten co-chaired the firm's Litigation Department from 1994 until 1999 and served on the firm's Management Committee from 1998 through 2008. His practice emphasizes complex international and domestic litigation, internal corporate investigations, law enforcement matters and Foreign Corrupt Practices Act matters. In January 2003, Mr. Witten became the senior litigation partner in the firm's New York office.

Practice

Mr. Witten has led teams of lawyers in several of the firm's largest and most noteworthy litigation cases. He leads a group of 45 lawyers who specialize in FCPA enforcement and counseling issues. The team counsels roughly fifty companies and typically has about 20 matters pending with the DOJ and SEC at any one time. He has led major matters for Johnson Controls, Titan, InVision, the Audit Committee of Royal Ahold, N.V., the German Economy Foundation Initiative, General Electric, UBS AG, Credit Suisse Group, Senators McCain and Feingold, DaimlerChrysler, Commerzbank, The Federal Republic of Germany, KarstadtQuelle, Citibank and US citrus growers. These cases involve matters of unique importance to the clients, have broad public dimensions and often involve international issues. Mr. Witten has conducted complex internal investigations and has represented companies and individuals in criminal, administrative, congressional and private litigation that arise out of such investigations. Mr. Witten is an internationally recognized expert on the Foreign Corrupt Practice Act and is an experienced trial and appellate lawyer. He has authored numerous articles on the FCPA.

Mr. Witten served as Assistant Special Prosecutor of the Watergate Special Prosecution Force in 1973 and 1974. He is a member of the District of Columbia and New York bars.  

Honors & Awards

  • Recognized by Main Justice as a "Foreign Corrupt Practice Act Master" in 2013, and as one of seven "Best FCPA Lawyers Outside the Beltway" in 2011
  • Listed in the 2010, 2012 and 2013 editions of Benchmark Litigation as a leading New York attorney for complex commercial litigation and international litigation
  • Recognized as a national FCPA expert in the 2010, 2011 and 2012 editions of Chambers USA: America's Leading Lawyers in Business  
  • Selected as an FCPA expert in the 2012 and 2013 editions of Chambers Global: The World's Leading Lawyers for Business  
  • Recognized by his peers as one of the world's leading banking and litigation attorneys in Legal Media Group's The Best of the Best  
  • Selected as one of the "Best Lawyers" for commercial litigation and white-collar criminal defense in The Best Lawyers in America  (2006, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013). Named in the 2005-2006 edition for business litigation and criminal defense.
  • In 2012 survey by Best Lawyers, a client cited Mr. Witten as “an excellent attorney who always provides thoughtful, accurate and consistent advice” who is “very responsive to client inquiries.” In addition, they noted that “in the area of anti-corruption/FCPA matters and investigations, there are very few attorneys who have the depth of experience and knowledge of the law as Roger.”
  • Recognized as a "New York Super Lawyer" in the 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012 editions of Metro Edition magazine

Publications & News

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May 17, 2013

FCPA Partners Publish Commentary on US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Guidance in Journal of Investment Compliance

May 17, 2013

DOJ and the SEC issue much-anticipated FCPA guidance

An article by Roger Witten, Kimberly Parker and Jay Holtmeier, published in the Journal of Investment Compliance (2013) Vol. 14, No. 1, pp. 5 –15.

May 10, 2013

Periodic SEC Examination at Broker-Dealer Leads to Criminal FCPA, Money Laundering Charges Against Two Employees

On May 7, 2013, federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York unsealed criminal Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”), money laundering, and Travel Act charges against two employees of Direct Access Partners, LLC (“DAP”), a New York based broker-dealer, in connection with a “web of bribery and corruption” involving Banco de Desarrollo Economico y Social de Venezuela (“BANDES”), the state-owned economic development bank of Venezuela.

April 26, 2013

Main Justice Honors Firm, Partner Roger Witten with “FCPA Distinguished Service Awards”

Main Justice awarded WilmerHale and Partner Roger Witten with its “Best FCPA Lawyers Distinguished Service Awards.” The firm received “Practice Group of the Year,” the most prestigious Main Justice honor, identifying the firm’s FCPA and Anti-Corruption Practice as the best in 2012. Witten is one of several individuals honored with the “Foreign Corrupt Practice Act Master” award.

February 28, 2013

February 2013 FCPA Judicial Decisions

February 2013 yielded two opinions from the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York: SEC v. Straub, et al. and SEC v. Sharef, et al. While these decisions are mostly relevant to legal issues pertaining to individuals outside the United States, the decisions do add to the scant body of FCPA case law. In this alert, WilmerHale Partners Roger Witten, Kimberly Parker, and Jay Holtmeier discuss the key topics addressed in these opinions: the constitutional minimum contacts necessary for a court to exercise personal jurisdiction over a defendant; whether foreign emails’ contact with servers in the United States satisfies the FCPA’s interstate commerce element; and the tolling of the statute of limitations while a defendant is physically outside the United States.

January 31, 2013

FCPA Year-in-Review: Developments of 2012 and Predictions for 2013 

The year 2012 witnessed several notable developments in the enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). In FCPA Year-in-Review: Developments of 2012 and Predictions for 2013, WilmerHale Partners Roger M. Witten, Kimberly A. Parker, and Jay Holtmeier discuss these developments, including: enforcement trends, the Department of Justice (DOJ)/Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Guidance, Morgan Stanley and compliance, and the first explicit reliance on the FCPA’s alternative jurisdiction provision to charge a U.S. company. These and other developments discussed in the alert illuminate the priorities of DOJ and the SEC, provide insight into likely future trends in settlements and judicial decisions, and serve as a road map for the government’s expectations regarding compliance programs and their implementation. Although 2012 saw a decline in the number of new cases publicly initiated by DOJ and the SEC, enforcement remains a stated priority: DOJ announced in 2012 that it had more than 150 open FCPA investigations and both DOJ and the SEC have signaled they will continue their aggressive prosecution of FCPA cases.

January 8, 2013

Lawyers Share Perspectives on Recent Court Opinions, Anti-Corruption Developments

In the January 2013 edition of the Financial Fraud Law Report, Partners Andrew Weissman and Douglas Davison and Counsel Benjamin Brown published an article entitled “String of Recent Circuit Court Opinions Impact SEC Enforcement Program.”

January 3, 2013

Perspectives on Recent Anti-Corruption Developments

An article by Roger M. Witten, Kimberly A. Parker, Jay Holtmeier and Thomas J. Koffer, published in the January 2013 edition of Financial Fraud Law Report.

November 19, 2012

DOJ and the SEC Issue Much-Anticipated FCPA Guidance

On November 14, 2012, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) published their long-awaited joint guidance on the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), entitled A Resource Guide to the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (the Guide). It is unprecedented in federal law enforcement that DOJ and the SEC have provided the public with such detailed information on their joint FCPA enforcement approach and priorities.

September 18, 2012

Perspectives on Recent Anti-Corruption Developments

Recent Highlights

Illustrative of Mr. Witten's litigation practice are:

  • His representation of various companies in counseling or litigation contexts on FCPA matters
  • His involvement in recent major FCPA cases including York, Titan, InVision and BAE Systems
  • His conduct of an internal investigation on behalf of Royal Ahold's Audit Committee into alleged accounting and related issues
  • His representation of Senators McCain and Feingold in successful litigation defending the constitutionality of the 2002 campaign finance reform law
  • His representation of UBS and Credit Suisse in the litigation and settlement of multiple class actions relating to World War II deposits
  • His representation of leading German companies in successful international negotiations relating to asserted World War II claims and in related litigation
  • His representation of UBS in a major securities case that went to trial in New York and was successfully settled

Professional Activities

Mr. Witten chaired the Twentieth Century Fund Working Group on Campaign Finance Litigation, which published a report entitled Buckley Stops Here: Loosening the Judicial Stranglehold on Campaign Finance Reform (1998). He also served as Chairman of the Election Law Committee of the Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice of the American Bar Association from 1988 to 1990. He formerly served as Counsel to Common Cause and has, for several years, served as counsel for Democracy 21 on whose board he sits.

Practices

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Education

JD, cum laude, Harvard Law School, 1972

AB, magna cum laude, Dartmouth College, 1968, Phi Beta Kappa

Bar Admissions

New York

District of Columbia

Clerkships

The Hon. Harrison L. Winter, US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, 1972 - 1973