Attorneys representing former
The overture from law firms Jones Day and Paul Weiss came on behalf of Cognizant’s former president and chief legal officer, who are charged with approving a $2 million payoff to expand their business into India, said two people briefed on the matter.
The outreach to acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove is just one of multiple instances of corporate defense attorneys immediately pressing prosecutors to drop cases as the Trump administration moves quickly to curtail white collar criminal enforcement.
Even before Trump’s Feb. 10 directive, an earlier memo from Attorney General Pam Bondi had already prompted some firms to pressure line prosecutors to abandon investigations or settle them leniently, said three lawyers familiar with the calls who spoke on condition of anonymity to divulge private conversations. Those efforts escalated this week, as law partners posed the refrain: Are you sure this is still a priority for your bosses?
Corporate defense attorneys accustomed to leveraging their relationships with higher-ups at the Justice Department are optimistic that they’ll find a particularly receptive audience right now at the top.
“Any defense lawyer worth his or her salt seeing the executive order would be considering how to approach DOJ leadership about how to get the case to go away, whether it’s an investigation or a charged case,” said Brian Klein, a partner with Waymaker and former federal prosecutor.
Another corporate defense lawyer said moves by Trump and Bondi signal the “store is open.”
Perhaps no firm in Washington is better positioned than Jones Day, a longtime home for influential conservative lawyers.
Jones Day partners Noel Francisco, Eric Dreiband, and John Gore worked in senior roles in the Justice Department during Trump’s first term before returning to the firm. Brett Shumate left Jones Day last month to run the department’s Civil Division.
Jones Day is planning to solicit new corporate clients under the pitch that they’ll urge their administration contacts to reopen and revise onerous settlements finalized with Biden-era DOJ officials, said one lawyer familiar with the strategy. That can include removing costly compliance monitors.
Media representatives for DOJ, Jones Day, and Paul Weiss didn’t immediately reply to requests for comment.
Judge’s Deadline
If Cognizant’s former executives convince the department to dismiss the case—on the heels of Bove’s order for Manhattan prosecutors to dismiss bribery charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams—it would send an early signal to other defense lawyers about seizing on Trump’s order.
The FCPA allegations at Cognizant, a publicly traded IT multinational, have resulted in a series of hearings and delays since charges were first brought in 2019—when Trump was first in office—that the defense bar has been closely monitoring.
The trial scheduled to begin March 3 was intended to provide a rare opportunity for prosecutors to make good on pledges during both the Biden and prior Trump administrations that they’ll hold high-level individuals accountable for corporate wrongdoing.
But Trump’s executive order, which cites “overexpansive and unpredictable FCPA enforcement against American citizens and businesses” for “routine business practices in other nations,” puts that case and many others in jeopardy.
Trump’s directive halts prosecutors from bringing new cases and requires the attorney general to review all existing ones under the 1977 Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
A federal judge in New Jersey presiding over the trial of Cognizant’s former president Gordon Coburn and top attorney Steven Schwartz has given DOJ until Feb. 18 to determine how the executive order impacts the trial.
Coburn is being represented by attorneys at Jones Day. Lawyers at Paul Weiss are representing Schwartz.
Bondi’s day one memos last week called for FCPA attorneys in the Criminal Division’s fraud section to prioritize bribery cases involving cartels and transnational criminal organizations and to “shift focus away” from all others. She alsocurtailed the scope of money laundering and foreign lobbying investigations.
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