Claudius Sokenu, a former federal regulator, is a partner in the litigation practice group where his practice focuses on representing multinational public and private companies, hedge funds, private equity firms, broker-dealers, investment banks, investment advisers, accounting firms, and their officers, directors, and employees in complex commercial litigations, securities enforcement actions and litigations, including class actions and FINRA arbitrations, white collar criminal defense, derivative actions, congressional investigations, internal investigations, and corporate crisis management. Claudius has extensive experience in handling delicate high-profile matters that require concurrent representation in the civil, criminal, and political spheres.
Claudius is widely recognized as a leading Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) practitioner. He regularly represents domestic and multinational companies and their employees in all aspects of FCPA internal investigations, enforcement actions, and compliance matters before the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the United States Department of Justice (DOJ), the United Kingdom's Serious Fraud Office, and other civil and criminal authorities in the United States and abroad. He has represented Boards of Directors, Audit Committees, officers, senior management and employees of multinational companies in anticorruption investigations in dozens of countries and on virtually every continent.
Earlier in his career, Claudius served in the Washington, DC office of the SEC in the Division of Enforcement, on the Honors Program, first as a Staff Attorney (1998-2000) and later as Senior Counsel (2000-2001), where he was responsible for handling a broad range of the SEC's domestic and international enforcement matters, including investigations involving accounting fraud, insider trading, initial public offerings, illicit payments under the FCPA, investment companies and investment advisers, market manipulation, and broker-dealer misconduct. He was also a member of the Enforcement Division's FCPA Working Group, which is now known as the FCPA Unit, one of the five specialized units created by the Enforcement Division in 2009. As a member of the Enforcement Division, he handled a number of high-profile enforcement matters, including the first-ever joint FCPA enforcement action with the DOJ against KPMG and Baker Hughes, Inc.; an FCPA enforcement action against a chief financial officer of a publicly traded oil services company; FCPA enforcement action against a former controller of an oilfield services company; and the SEC's enforcement action against Goldman Sachs & Co. for violations of the federal securities laws in connection with the initial public offerings of PetroChina Company Limited, China Telecom Hong Kong Limited, Chinadotcom Corp., and Giga Media Limited for which Goldman Sachs served as underwriter.
Claudius is an Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, DC where he teaches advanced level securities enforcement and litigation courses. Claudius has lectured and published extensively on securities enforcement and litigation matters and has been quoted in the financial press on a variety of securities law issues.
Among many other awards, in January 2011, Claudius was named one of seven "Best FCPA Lawyers Outside the Beltway" by Main Justice, an independent news organization that covers the DOJ. In February 2011, Claudius was awarded the 2011 Outstanding Outside Counsel award by the National Bar Association, Commercial Law Section. In December 2010, he was named to Diversity & The Bar's "Leading Law Firm Rainmakers" list. In February 2007, Claudius was named to Securities Law360's "10 Under 40," a list of 10 lawyers under the age of 40 who have demonstrated an outstanding breadth of knowledge and experience in the securities enforcement and litigation field. In 2005, the City Bar Association of New York appointed Claudius to serve on the Task Force on the Role of Attorneys in Corporate Governance. In 2003, the Minority Corporate Counsel Association honored Claudius as an Outstanding Outside Corporate Counsel. In 2001, the Association of the Bar of the City of New York honored Claudius for outstanding pro bono work.