USA
Practice Areas
Focuses on white-collar criminal defense, regulatory enforcement, and internal investigations. Represents institutions and individual clients in numerous high-profile matters, including those involving alleged violations of the federal securities and commodities laws, FCPA matters, and bank regulatory and money laundering offenses
Career
Steven Peikin leads Sullivan & Cromwellās Securities & Commodities Investigations Practice. Mr. Peikin brings decades of experience at the most senior levels of government and in private practice to his representation of clients in a wide range of regulatory enforcement investigations, white-collar criminal matters, and internal investigations. He has particular expertise in matters involving the federal securities and commodities laws. Mr. Peikin is the only practicing lawyer to have held what are widely considered to be the countryās two most important government positions in securities enforcement: Director of the SECās Division of Enforcement (2017-2020), and Chief of the Securities Unit in the U.S. Attorneyās Office for the Southern District of New York (2003-2004). At the SEC, he supervised over 1400 people and had overall responsibility for all of the agencyās investigations and litigations across its 12 offices. At the U.S. Attorneyās Office, he oversaw 40 prosecutors, investigators, and staff responsible for some of the nationās highest-profile financial statement fraud, insider trading, and obstruction of justice cases. As a prosecutor, Mr. Peikin also investigated and prosecuted a wide variety of securities, commodities, and other investment fraud schemes; and cases involving racketeering, murder, and other violent crimes. Mr. Peikin has tried more than 20 criminal jury cases in federal court and argued numerous appeals before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. At Sullivan & Cromwell, Mr. Peikin has had a significant role representing institutions and/or their senior executives in virtually every major enforcement initiative of the past two decades, including those relating to the global financial crisis, benchmark interest rates, treasury auction manipulation, foreign bribery, insider trading, SPACs, and digital assets. Many of the worldās most sophisticated institutions have called on him to assist with their most important matters.
Professional Memberships
Visiting Scholar, Harvard Business School (2020); Adjunct Professor of Law, NYU Law School (2013-Present); Member, Criminal Justice Act Panel, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York (2006-2017); Executive Vice-President and President Emeritus, Center for Hearing and Communication, a nonprofit rehabilitation and human services agency for the deaf and hard of hearing; Frequent featured speaker at bar association and professional organization conferences on issues relating to securities and commodities fraud and internal investigations, including the American Bar Association, SIFMA, New York City Bar, Federal Bar Council, and PLI
Personal
Harvard Law School (J.D., 1991); Yale University (B.A., 1988)
