Mark Plotkin, a partner in the Washington, DC office of Covington & Burling LLP, chairs the Firm's National Security and Defense Industry Group. Mr. Plotkin represents clients before the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) in obtaining approval for foreign investments in the United States and before the Defense Security Service in connection with foreign ownership, control, or influence (FOCI) reviews. His experience includes negotiating some of the most significant, complex and sensitive national security mitigation agreements with the U.S. government since the attacks of September 11, 2001.
Mr. Plotkin recently advised Nexen, Inc. in connection with its $19 billion acquisition by CNOOC Limited; and BAE Systems in connection with its proposed $45 billion combination with EADS. In other landmark CFIUS cases, Mr. Plotkin represented IBM in the company's $1.75 billion sale of its PC division to Lenovo, China Investment Corporation in its $1.6 billion investment in AES Corporation, CNOOC Limited in its $3.5 billion aggregate investments in Chesapeake Energy's shale projects, Deutsche Börse in its proposed $9.5 billion acquisition of the New York Stock Exchange, Temasek in its multi-billion dollar investment in Merrill Lynch, ATIC in its joint venture with AMD to form GLOBALFOUNDRIES, and Global Crossing in its acquisition by Singapore Technologies Telemedia.
Mr. Plotkin, a member of Phi Beta Kappa, graduated from Yale College summa cum laude and Harvard Law School with honors. He is an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C., where he teaches a course on national security law, and he lectures annually on cross-border transactions at Yale Law School. Mr. Plotkin has edited several treatises and authored dozens of articles on regulatory topics.