Tarek J. Helou
Partner
Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati
Tarek Helou is a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, where he represents companies in internal investigations and defends companies and individuals in significant and multi-jurisdictional government enforcement actions. He also handles crisis management and counsels clients on risk assessments, compliance, and due diligence, with a focus on anti-corruption matters. Tarek, a former supervisor in the U.S. Department of Justice's Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) Unit, has deep expertise in all aspects of government investigations, having led or supervised more than 100 FCPA investigations focusing on every major industry, including companies in the technology, software, data analytics, medical device, pharmaceutical, mining, oil and gas, and finance sectors. Those investigations have resulted in FCPA, wire fraud, money laundering, and tax charges against publicly traded and privately held companies, board members and executives, and senior foreign government officials.
Tarek is an experienced trial lawyer and investigator who has a deep understanding of how prosecutors think and how the Justice Department approaches criminal cases. His practice is driven by this experience and his insight into what the Justice Department and other U.S. and foreign government agencies expect companies to do when they conduct internal investigations, cooperate with the government, and implement and improve their compliance programs.
Prior to joining the firm, Tarek spent 12 years at the Justice Department. From 2014 to 2019, he was an assistant chief in the FCPA Unit of the Criminal Division's Fraud Section, and he also served as a trial attorney in the FCPA Unit from 2012 to 2014. In these positions, he served as the decision maker for some of the DOJ's largest, most complex international criminal investigations, led and supervised teams of agents and prosecutors in the Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney's Offices throughout the country, and coordinated investigations with domestic regulators and foreign criminal and regulatory authorities throughout the world. In addition, Tarek selected and supervised seven independent corporate compliance monitors. He also helped develop the FCPA Pilot Program and the FCPA Corporate Enforcement Policy. While in the FCPA Unit, Tarek was the lead attorney or supervisor for some of the Justice Department's most significant corporate and individual cases.
Audrey L. Harris
[email protected]
Mayer Brown LLP
Audrey Harris rejoined Mayer Brown in Washington DC as a partner and co-chair of its Global Anti-Corruption & FCPA practice after serving as the chief compliance officer (CCO) for global resources company BHP. Based in Melbourne, Australia, she led a global ethics & compliance function providing expertise in anti-corruption, trade sanctions, export controls, competition, ethics & investigations, state & commercial secrets, and market conduct compliance, with a team of professionals and attorneys across four continents.
Audrey served as the company’s first chief compliance officer. Her team was accountable for safeguarding integrity by preventing, mitigating, and investigating compliance risks and setting ethical standards. Her role also involved work with NGOs, international governing bodies and enforcement agencies as part of the promotion of global anti-corruption, transparency and integrity.
A veteran Foreign Corruption Practices Act (FCPA) and white collar practitioner, prior to becoming a CCO, Audrey was a partner at Mayer Brown with more than a decade of experience handling multi-year, multinational investigations, with a comprehensive investigations, counseling and defense capability.
Audrey regularly appears before enforcement authorities and has extensive experience in designing, executing and presenting internal investigations before multinational corporations, the US Department of Justice (DOJ), Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC), Department of Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), Department of Defense, and Multilateral Development Banks (MBDs). Her experience runs the gamut of white collar representations including false claims act, healthcare fraud, management of earnings, money laundering defense, and even anti-terrorism matters. Before joining Mayer Brown, Audrey was a partner at another leading global law firm.
Sulaksh Shah
Forensics Services Partner
PwC
Sulaksh R. Shah is a partner in PwC's Forensic Services Practice in Washington D.C.
Sulaksh has over 20 years of public accounting experience. His practice focuses on anti-corruption/FCPA matters and internal investigations. Sulaksh has represented clients before the United States Department of Justice as well as the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Sulaksh has worked on anti-corruption/FCPA matters in Africa, Asia, South America, North America, Australia, and Europe . In particular, he has anti-corruption/FCPA experience in pharmaceutical/medical products, manufacturing, industrial products, retail and consumer, hospitality, financial services, defense, and the oil and gas industry.
He frequently speaks on anti-corruption/FCPA topics and has been a featured speaker at national and international conferences, including American Conference Institute events. Sulaksh has instructed at various universities, including but not limited to Georgetown Law School, University of Virginia, University of Missouri, and DePaul University.
Sulaksh is a licensed Certified Public Accountant (CPA) in Illinois and Washington DC. He is also a Certified Fraud Examiner, and Certified in Financial Forensics (CFF). Sulaksh is a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Mumbai, India.
Kara Novaco Bockmeyer
Partner
Debevois & Plimpton LLP
Kara Brockmeyer is a litigation partner based in the firm’s Washington, D.C. office. She is a member of the White Collar & Regulatory Defense and Strategic Crisis Response and Solutions Groups, where her practice focuses on representing companies and individuals in anti-corruption, fraud and related government investigations and internal investigations, as well as advising on deal due diligence and compliance matters. Ms. Brockmeyer is ranked as a leading lawyer by Chambers USA (2020), where she is praised for her “enviable experience in major anticorruption investigations” and “expertise counseling clients on FCPA compliance programs.” Ms. Brockmeyer is also recommended by The Legal 500 US (2020).
Prior to joining Debevoise in 2017, Ms. Brockmeyer served as the Chief of the SEC Enforcement Division’s Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Unit and directed a nationwide team of attorneys and forensic accountants investigating violations of the FCPA. During her tenure as chief of the unit, she oversaw many of the agency’s largest and most complex FCPA investigations. She was also one of the principal authors of the SEC-DOJ Resource Guide to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which is widely considered the definitive government-issued guide on the FCPA.
Over a 17-year career at the SEC, including five years as an assistant director, Ms. Brockmeyer led and personally conducted major investigations in all areas of SEC enforcement, including financial reporting, broker-dealer and investment adviser violations, and insider trading. She was also the founder and co-head of the division’s Cross-Border Working Group, an interdisciplinary group focused on addressing accounting fraud by companies based overseas.
Before joining the SEC in 2000, Ms. Brockmeyer was in private practice in Chicago, primarily focused on securities and complex commercial litigation.
Ms. Brockmeyer earned her J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School, magna cum laude, where she was also note editor of the Michigan Law Review. She received her B.A. from Williams College, cum laude.
Ms. Brockmeyer is a frequent speaker and commentator on anti-corruption and cross-border issues. She is co-editor-in-chief of the firm’s monthly FCPA Update newsletter, and is currently vice-chair of the Structured Criminal Settlements Subcommittee of the IBA’s Anti-Corruption Committee. She is also co-chair of the DC Bar Association’s Broker-Dealer Regulation and SEC Enforcement Committee.
Charles E. Duross
Partner
Morrison & Foerster LLP
Charles (Chuck) Duross serves as global co-chair of Morrison & Foerster’s Investigations + White Collar Defense Practice Group and is a co-leader of its FCPA and Global Anti-Corruption practice. With more than twenty-three years of experience principally focused on white-collar cases, Chuck’s practice has an emphasis on complex white-collar criminal matters, including internal corporate investigations, representing special committees, compliance counseling, due diligence regarding third parties and business transactions, and defense of clients before government enforcement agencies and multilateral investment banks. Chuck has handled cases and overseen investigations in dozens of countries. As a veteran trial attorney, Chuck has a proven track record in the courtroom in high-profile, high-stakes trials. Dubbed “Mr. FCPA” in The Washington Post, Chuck is routinely recognized in various rankings and publications, including Chambers Global, Chambers USA, and Legal 500 as a leading attorney in white-collar criminal defense, with a particular specialty in FCPA and foreign corruption cases.
Chuck previously served as a Deputy Chief in the Fraud Section of the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), where he led the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) Unit and was in charge of all of the DOJ’s FCPA investigations, prosecutions and resolutions in the United States. Chuck is internationally recognized for his leading role in developing and implementing the government’s FCPA enforcement strategy, and he is widely credited with developing the current enforcement regime. Under his leadership, the FCPA Unit resolved more than 40 corporate cases resulting in approximately $1.9 billion in monetary penalties and prosecuted dozens of business executives and money launderers. As the head of the FCPA Unit, Chuck oversaw countless voluntary disclosures, decided which matters would be declined, administered DOJ’s FCPA Opinion Release Procedure and was responsible for interviewing, selecting and reviewing the work of nearly 20 independent corporate monitors.
In investigating and prosecuting transnational bribery cases, Chuck worked with every major U.S. Attorney’s Office and law enforcement agency in the United States, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), law enforcement counterparts around the world and numerous multi-lateral development banks, including the World Bank. For example, Chuck worked with the Australian Federal Police, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Tribunal de Grande Instance de Paris, Indonesia’s Anti-Corruption Commission, the Tokyo Public Prosecutor’s Office, Mexico’s Procuraduría General de la República, Norway’s Økokrim, the Swiss Attorney General’s Office, Thailand’s National Anti-Corruption Commission, and the United Kingdom’s City of London Police, Crown Prosecution Service, Metropolitan Police and Serious Fraud Office.
While in the Fraud Section, Chuck led the development of a deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) template for FCPA cases, which formed the basis for a DPA template later adopted for use by the entire Criminal Division, and he also led the effort to update and restructure the enhanced compliance components used in resolving FCPA cases. As a recognized expert, Chuck was consulted by UK officials prior to the adoption of legislation permitting deferred prosecution agreements.
Chuck’s tenure was also marked by his efforts to make FCPA enforcement more transparent and compliance with the statute more understandable to the business community. Working closely with his counterparts at the SEC, Chuck was one of the principal authors of the DOJ and SEC’s joint publication A Resource Guide to the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which followed a series of consultations with business and compliance leaders. The Guide has received wide praise from the business community, compliance and ethics professionals and private practitioners, and has been described as a “landmark document,” an “FCPA hornbook,” and a “must-read for compliance officers.”
Chuck also served as DOJ’s principal representative to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Working Group on Bribery for many years and helped develop the OECD’s acclaimed Good Practice Guidance on Internal Controls, Ethics and Compliance. Besides his involvement in the OECD Phase 1 of Russia and Phase 2 of South Africa, Chuck’s leadership during the OECD Phase 3 of the United States earned him the Assistant Attorney General’s Exceptional Service Award, the Criminal Division’s highest award for employee performance.
Prior to being appointed Deputy Chief, Chuck served as Assistant Chief of the FCPA Unit from October 2008 to April 2010, and as a line prosecutor with the Fraud Section from December 2006 to October 2008. Beyond FCPA enforcement, Chuck has supervised and tried all manner of white-collar cases, including healthcare fraud, mail and wire fraud, money laundering, public corruption, securities fraud and tax evasion. A veteran trial attorney, Chuck is a recipient of the prestigious Attorney General’s Distinguished Service Award, the second-highest department-wide award for employee performance, as one of the lead prosecutors who secured the conviction of Congressman William Jefferson following a nearly nine-week trial.
Chuck earned his J.D., cum laude, from the University of Michigan Law School in 1996 and his B.A., magna cum laude, from the University of Michigan in 1993. After beginning his career as a litigation associate at an international firm in 1996, he joined the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida in 2001, where he prosecuted a variety of white-collar cases, including bank fraud, embezzlement, mail and wire fraud, money laundering, securities fraud and trademark violations. Chuck rose to the position of Deputy Chief in the Major Crimes Section in Miami before moving to Washington, D.C., in 2006 to join the Fraud Section. Chuck has been an adjunct professor for seven years at Georgetown University Law Center, where he has taught trial advocacy, has been a guest lecturer at Harvard Law School’s Program on the Legal Profession, University of Pennsylvania Law School, and the University of Michigan Law School and Ross School of Business. As an internationally recognized expert on transnational bribery, white-collar crimes, and compliance issues, Chuck is a sought-after speaker, and he routinely speaks at conferences across the United States and around the world. He is admitted to practice in Michigan and the District of Columbia.
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