William J Schwartz
USA Guide 2023
Band 2 : Litigation: White-Collar Crime & Government Investigations
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Band 2
About
Provided by William J Schwartz
Practice Areas
Bill Schwartz is a senior litigation partner and a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers. He is a former member of both Cooley's Compensation Committee and its Management Committee. He is also the former chair of the firm's white collar defense & investigations group.
Bill practices in the areas of white collar criminal defense and complex commercial litigation. He has represented numerous corporations and individuals in state and federal grand jury investigations and at trial throughout the country, and before regulatory agencies such as the Securities and Exchange Commission. Among the many criminal or regulatory matters in which he has had significant representations are those involving FIFA (RICO and commercial bribery), Guinea iron mining (foreign corrupt practices), BNP Paribas (trade sanctions violations), Global FX (securities fraud), Refco (securities fraud), Kazakh Oil (foreign corrupt practices), the New York State Comptroller's Office (state securities fraud), Christie's/Sotheby’s (price fixing), Tollman Hundley Hotels (tax and bank fraud), Mitsubishi Corporation/carbon electrodes (price fixing), AOL-Time Warner (securities fraud), Iraq-gate (bank fraud), Con Edison (criminal environmental violations), Gitano (customs fraud), GAF (securities fraud) and Drexel (securities fraud). He has also conducted numerous internal investigations for corporations and audit committees and advised those entities on the implications of the findings. In his civil practice, Bill has handled virtually every kind of complex commercial dispute, in state and federal courts as well as before domestic and international arbitration panels, for clients ranging from international finance firms to large domestic and foreign public companies and conglomerates to privately-held corporations. A particular focus of his practice has been the representation of major law firms in cases involving allegations of malpractice or fraud, and in partnership disputes.
Career
Before joining Cooley, Bill served as Assistant United States Attorney in the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York where he was Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division. During his tenure, Bill successfully tried a number of major white collar cases, including United States v. Stanley Friedman (RICO prosecution of Bronx Democratic leader and city officials).
Following graduation from law school, Bill clerked for the Honorable Marvin E. Frankel and the Honorable Abraham D. Sofaer, both of the United States District Court, Southern District of New York.