Wonnell, T. Burke

Roger Witten is a partner in the firm's Litigation/Controversy Department, and a member of the Investigations and Criminal Litigation and Government and Regulatory Litigation Practice Groups. He joined the firm in 1975 and became a partner in 1980. Mr. Witten co-chaired the firm's Litigation Department from 1994 until 1999 and served on the firm's Management Committee from 1998 through 2008. His practice emphasizes complex international and domestic litigation, internal corporate investigations, law enforcement matters and Foreign Corrupt Practices Act matters. In January 2003, Mr. Witten became the senior litigation partner in the firm's New York office.

Practice

Mr. Witten has led teams of lawyers in several of the firm's largest and most noteworthy litigation cases. He leads a group of 45 lawyers who specialize in FCPA enforcement and counseling issues. The team counsels roughly fifty companies and typically has about 20 matters pending with the DOJ and SEC at any one time. He has led major matters for Johnson Controls, Titan, InVision, the Audit Committee of Royal Ahold, N.V., the German Economy Foundation Initiative, General Electric, UBS AG, Credit Suisse Group, Senators McCain and Feingold, DaimlerChrysler, Commerzbank, The Federal Republic of Germany, KarstadtQuelle, Citibank and US citrus growers. These cases involve matters of unique importance to the clients, have broad public dimensions and often involve international issues. Mr. Witten has conducted complex internal investigations and has represented companies and individuals in criminal, administrative, congressional and private litigation that arise out of such investigations. Mr. Witten is an internationally recognized expert on the Foreign Corrupt Practice Act and is an experienced trial and appellate lawyer.

Mr. Witten served as Assistant Special Prosecutor of the Watergate Special Prosecution Force in 1973 and 1974. He is a member of the District of Columbia and New York bars.

Recent Highlights

Illustrative of Mr. Witten's litigation practice are:

• His representation of various companies in counseling or litigation contexts on FCPA matters
• His involvement in recent major FCPA cases including York, Titan, InVision and BAE Systems
• His conduct of an internal investigation on behalf of Royal Ahold's Audit Committee into alleged accounting and related issues
• His representation of Senators McCain and Feingold in successful litigation defending the constitutionality of the 2002 campaign finance reform law
• His representation of UBS and Credit Suisse in the litigation and settlement of multiple class actions relating to World War II deposits
• His representation of leading German companies in successful international negotiations relating to asserted World War II claims and in related litigation
• His representation of UBS in a major securities case that went to trial in New York and was successfully settled

Professional Activities

Mr. Witten chaired the Twentieth Century Fund Working Group on Campaign Finance Litigation, which published a report entitled Buckley Stops Here: Loosening the Judicial Stranglehold on Campaign Finance Reform (1998). He also served as Chairman of the Election Law Committee of the Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice of the American Bar Association from 1988 to 1990. He formerly served as Counsel to Common Cause and has, for several years, served as counsel for Democracy 21 on whose board he sits.

Honors and Awards

• Recognized nationally by Main Justice as one of seven "Best FCPA Lawyers Outside the Beltway"
• Listed in the 2010 and 2012 editions of Benchmark Litigation as a leading New York attorney for complex commercial litigation and international litigation
• Recognized as a national FCPA expert in the 2010 and 2011 editions of Chambers USA: America's Leading Lawyers in Business
• Recognized by his peers as one of the world's leading banking and litigation attorneys in Legal Media Group's The Best of the Best
• Selected as one of the "Best Lawyers" for commercial litigation and white-collar criminal defense in The Best Lawyers in America (2006, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012). Named in the 2005-2006 edition for business litigation and criminal defense
• Recognized as a "Super Lawyer" in the 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011 editions of New York Super Lawyers - Metro

Other Publications

• Complying with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (Matthew Bender, 7th ed. 2010), co-authored with Kimberly Parker and Jay Holtmeier
• "Regulating Campaign Finance," co-edited with Lloyd Cutler and Louis Cohen and published in The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (July 1986)
• Numerous articles on the FCPA