K&L Gates Launches Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force

We here at the Financial Fraud Law Blog and the Financial Fraud Law Report have highlighted the wave of lawyers who have been moving from federal and state government positions to practice white collar defense/securities fraud/financial fraud law in private practice. We have highlighted many of the lawyers who move from one law firm to another to do that, too. And just yesterday, we noted that a federal district court judge – the one who handled Raj Rajaratnam’s insider trading trial –  left the bench and moved into a new boutique firm that will focus on securities fraud and other financial fraud issues. 

Now, the mega-law firm K&L Gates LLP has taken the focus on financial fraud law to its most natural next level: the firm has created its own Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force.
 
Drawing on lawyers from the firm's securities enforcement, white collar, litigation, financial services, internal investigation, and insurance coverage practice areas, as well as the firm’s experience in the substantive mortgage financing issues on which the new federal Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities (RMBS) Working Group is focused, the firm says that its Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force is intended to formulate coordinated defense strategies to address allegations of RMBS fraud, mortgage fraud, securities fraud, and other types of financial fraud or discrimination alleged by the government. The firm’s Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force has a core group of more than 50 lawyers from more than a dozen of the firm's U.S. offices.
 
"Now that federal and state governments are coordinating their enforcement activities among various disciplines, it is essential for the industry to respond in kind," said Laurence E. Platt (pictured), a Financial Services practice area leader in K&L Gates' Washington, D.C., office.
 
Firms across the country have been expanding their Financial Fraud Law capabilities. K&L Gates has now formally organized its own capabilities in that area into its very own Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force.