White Collar Defense & Investigations

By the time most companies and executives understand they are under investigation, federal prosecutors have already been working on the matter for months. Subpoenas have gone to banks, vendors, and former employees. Cooperation deals have been negotiated with witnesses who once seemed loyal. Charging decisions are being framed by an internal narrative that the target has not yet had a meaningful chance to influence. The work of moving that narrative; demonstrating why charges should not be filed or why penalties should be reduced; often happens in a window that closes faster than is widely understood.

Seiden Law’s Sanctions, White Collar, Investigations & Regulatory group is staffed by former federal and state prosecutors and seasoned trial lawyers who defend companies, boards, executives, and high-profile individuals in sensitive investigations and government enforcement actions. The firm appears regularly before the DOJ, U.S. Attorneys’ Offices, SEC, FBI, state attorneys general, OFAC, and other domestic and foreign authorities. The goal is simple: end matters quickly and favorably, ideally before charges are filed.

Headquartered in New York with a global disputes platform, the firm handles investigations and enforcement matters that span Asia, Europe, and the Middle East; often coordinating with foreign counsel and regulators in parallel tracks.

What Sets Seiden Law Apart

Former-prosecutor advantage. The team’s government experience informs strategy from day one: messaging to enforcement staff, sequencing of proffers, internal-investigation design, and remediation that prosecutors find credible.
Resolve early; try when necessary. The firm prioritizes results that avoid charges by demonstrating why prosecution is unwarranted, using focused fact-finding and targeted advocacy. When needed, the firm litigates decisively in court.
High-stakes, high-profile savvy. The firm understands the reputational, operational, and personal stakes. While some matters draw headlines in The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal, the most important victories often happen quietly; when prosecutors choose not to file or regulators stand down.
Integrated sanctions, regulatory, and cross-border strength. Many investigations implicate sanctions, export controls, and cross-border facts. Seiden’s sanctions/OFAC and international litigation capabilities plug directly into white-collar matters; one team, unified strategy.
Bench depth. The group includes lawyers with significant DOJ, SEC, and OFAC experience and complex enforcement track records.

How Federal Investigations Develop

Federal white-collar investigations rarely begin with a target letter. They more often begin quietly; through whistleblower tips routed to the SEC under the Dodd-Frank bounty program, through grand jury subpoenas to third parties whose cooperation is sought before the target is approached, through coordinated regulatory referrals between agencies, or through ongoing surveillance of an industry sector under a broader enforcement initiative. The first signal a company receives may be a subpoena to a vendor, a request for documents from a regulator, an interview request to a former employee, or simply the discovery that bank records have been provided to investigators.

How counsel responds in the first days and weeks after that signal often shapes the trajectory of the entire matter. The choices are not always obvious. Whether to commission an internal investigation, and how to scope it. Whether to engage with prosecutors immediately, and through whom. Whether to extend privilege protections to individual employees through joint defense agreements or to advise them to retain separate counsel. Whether voluntary self-disclosure under one of the available DOJ or SEC programs makes sense for the matter at hand.

The firm’s former prosecutor experience informs each of these decisions. Lawyers who have run grand jury investigations, made charging decisions, and negotiated resolutions on the government side bring directly relevant judgment to the question of how prosecutors and regulators will read a given factual record.

Core Focus Areas

Securities and accounting matters. Insider trading, revenue recognition and accounting fraud, disclosure controls, books-and-records matters, and audit inquiries.
Sanctions, OFAC, anti-money laundering, and export controls. Screening failures, facilitation theory, 50-percent-rule issues, and voluntary or self-disclosures.
FCPA and global anti-corruption. Third-party risk, hospitality and payments, internal-controls design and testing.
Financial services enforcement. Market-manipulation, trading practices, conflicts, and Reg SCI/Reg NMS-style matters.
Fraud and public corruption. Wire, mail, and bank fraud; procurement integrity; honest-services theories; and conflicts of interest.

Representative Matters

DOJ/SEC parallel inquiry resolved without charges. Board-directed internal investigation, targeted self-report, and remediation plan leading to a no-charge resolution.
OFAC screening lapse matter. Root-cause review and compliance uplift paired with advocacy to avoid penalties and resolve regulator concerns.
Public corruption probe narrowed to decline. Rapid evidence assessment and witness strategy to narrow exposure and steer toward declination.
Cross-border investigation with Interpol exposure. Coordination across jurisdictions and narrative alignment to avoid conflicting outcomes across borders.

Collaboration Across Seiden Law

The firm’s WRIS work is supported by integrated capabilities elsewhere in the firm. Sanctions (OFAC) and regulatory capabilities cover licensing, delisting, mitigation, and when needed, suing OFAC to compel agency action. Judgment enforcement and asset recovery capabilities engage when investigations intersect with monetization, asset protection, or receiverships.

Common questions

Frequently asked questions

When should counsel be engaged in a potential investigation?

As early as possible. The earliest signals of an investigation; a subpoena to a third party, an unexpected request for documents, an indication that former employees have been contacted by investigators; are often the most consequential moments for shaping the trajectory of the matter. Decisions made before counsel are engaged, including initial document preservation, communications with potential witnesses, and any voluntary engagement with regulators, can have lasting consequences.

How does voluntary self-disclosure affect outcomes?

Under the DOJ Corporate Enforcement Policy and parallel SEC programs, voluntary self-disclosure of misconduct, accompanied by full cooperation and timely remediation, can produce substantially more favorable outcomes than disclosure forced by government investigation. The decision to disclose is consequential and irreversible; once made, it commits the company to a cooperation posture that affects every subsequent decision.

What does an internal investigation actually require?

Effective internal investigations require disciplined scoping, careful management of privilege, and structured fact-finding designed to produce work products that will be useful in subsequent resolution discussions with regulators or prosecutors. Common errors include overscoping, which inflates cost and creates a record that may be discoverable in later proceedings; underscoping, which leaves issues unaddressed; and informal communications by counsel or investigators that compromise privilege protections.

How does the firm handle situations involve both corporate and individual exposure?

Many investigations create tension between the company’s interests and those of individual executives or employees. The company may seek cooperation credit through full disclosure of individual misconduct, while individuals face their own potential criminal or civil exposure. The firm regularly represents companies in matters where this tension is present and works carefully to manage the relationship with individuals through joint defense agreements where appropriate, separate-counsel referrals where conflicts exist, and structured engagement protocols.

How long do white-collar matters typically take?

Timelines vary substantially depending on the complexity of the underlying conduct, the agencies involved, and whether the matter resolves at the investigative stage or proceeds to charges and litigation. Matters that resolve through declination or non-prosecution agreement at the investigative stage may conclude in twelve to twenty-four months. Matters that proceed to charges and trial can extend over several years.

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