Lawyers Line up to Defend Wall Street Executives as Investors Demand Justice
White-collar defense lawyers are prepared for indictments, prosecutions and class-action lawsuits far exceeding the number of those against Enron Corp. and Arthur Andersen as the government launches criminal probes of top financial industry executives.
Prosecutors “are going to be looking at the CEO and CFO level, trying to decide whether statements that were made and the decisions that were made involved criminality,” Greg Miller, a former assistant U.S. attorney and a partner in the white-collar defense group at Drinker, Biddle & Reath told the Philadelphia Inquirer.
As the severity of the financial crisis draws comparisons to the Great Depression, public demand for blame and the complexity of the industry’s meltdown will boost the number of criminal investigations and extend their reach to accounting and law firms as well, the newspaper reported.
Some defense lawyers worry that prosecutors will also ask for sweeping indictments, which can bring down an entire firm, instead of focusing on individuals where criminal behavior is apparent, such as with Andersen in 2001-02. Although the U.S. Supreme Court threw out the indictment, tens of thousands of Andersen employees lost their jobs as a result.
“From a white-collar practitioner’s standpoint, I can’t remember a scarier time,’’ Miller told the paper.
Meanwhile, the FBI is scrambling to keep up with the influx of financial fraud cases because, post 9/11, the bureau shifted hundreds of agents in criminal investigative units to expand its national security role. The New York Times reports that the FBI intends, again through reassignments, to double the number of agents investigating financial crimes.
Updated at 5:30 p.m. to add details about FBI staffing.
