John Lewis, Jr. is a partner at Lawrence & Bundy LLC and has over 25 years of broad based experience as a lead trial lawyer in private practice, in-house litigation counsel, including managing the global litigation team of an Atlanta-based Fortune 100 company, conducting internal investigations domestically and internationally and advising corporate board members, executives and senior business leaders. John has served as senior managing litigation counsel, global anti-bribery counsel and global head of diversity and workplace fairness.
John focuses his practice on internal and government investigations, including Foreign Corrupt Practices Act investigations, corporate compliance and commercial litigation, including class action litigation, business bankruptcy/creditors rights/receiverships and diversity consulting.
John led internal and governmental investigations into some of the earliest Sarbanes-Oxley whistleblower claims. He was tapped to serve as his company’s first global anti-bribery counsel responsible for company compliance with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the UK Bribery Act and similar global anti-corruption laws around the world. In this role, John led in-person training, audits and investigations in Asia, Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America, including compliance-related due diligence in international M&A transactions. He also personally advised and updated the board audit committee on these matters.
John honed his trial skills early in his career, serving for over 10 years in private practice as a commercial litigator with emphasis on bankruptcy/creditors’ rights disputes. John then moved into an in-house role with an Atlanta-based Fortune 100 company and for eight years – five as head of litigation – he defended company directors in shareholder derivative cases and advised senior management in all aspects of strategy, leading interviews, defending depositions and managing alternative dispute resolution in class actions, multi-district litigation and related proceedings. He managed the single largest potential litigation exposure in the history of the company, which was a securities class action lawsuit that touched four continents.
John’s diversity consulting practice is unique in that John brings his experience of actually having been a head of diversity for a global company. As global chief diversity officer, he had board-level accountability for all aspects of workplace fairness, including responses to EEOC charges and OFCCP inquires as well as media and related media and reputational concerns. John served as the “voice” and “face” of diversity and inclusion for the company interacting with external constituents, community leaders, insurance carriers, institutional investors and the landscape of workplace, marketplace, community, customers and partners. Through this experience, John brings unique perspective to confidential litigation assessments, corporate diversity compliance reviews, internal legal vulnerability assessments and assisting clients in developing “best practice” benchmarking.
John’s broad based background enables him to bring a solutions-based perspective drawing on a range of legal disciplines and a proven track record of success working not just with lawyers, but with business leaders in public affairs, a public company board of directors, communications, government relations, regulatory affairs and community stakeholders.
John is licensed to practice in Pennsylvania, Missouri, Kansas and Georgia. He can be reached at [email protected].
Thus far in 2016, the DOJ and SEC have already brought more FCPA enforcement actions than in the entirety of 2015. This year’s enforcement actions reflect a continued expansion of the “anything of value” language in the FCPA to include “intangible benefits.” When coupled with the DOJ’s Pilot Program, these developments may be quite instructive…
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