Biography: Business Crime Defence

Gary P Naftalis is co-chair of Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP, where he heads the firm's extensive litigation practice. One of the nation's leading trial lawyers, he was selected as one of the 100 most influential lawyers in America by the National Law Journal and as one of the 10 leading trial lawyers in the United States by Legal 500. Mr Naftalis is a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers. For more than 40 years he has represented individuals and corporations in all phases of complex civil, criminal, and regulatory matters, including those involving allegations of accounting irregularities, insider trading, market manipulation and other financial fraud. Mr Naftalis has also served as counsel to audit and special committees of a number of major public companies.

In a career spanning over 40 years, he has successfully represented numerous securities industry clients, including Salomon Brothers in the investigation of US Treasury auction bidding practices; Kidder, Peabody in the Wall Street insider trading probe; and Canary Capital Partners in the mutual fund inquiries. He represented institutions and individuals in the investigations of Drexel Burnham, none of them ultimately charged by the government. Mr Naftalis also represented the investment banking firm CIBC in the investigation conducted by the Enron Task Force.

Mr Naftalis currently represents Rajat Gupta, former managing director worldwide of McKinsey, against charges relating to the Galleon Group. He also currently represents Sirius Satellite Radio in litigation with radio personality Howard Stern.

He successfully defended Michael Eisner, the CEO of The Walt Disney Company, in the shareholders derivative lawsuit relating to the hiring and termination of Michael Ovitz. After a 37-day trial in the Delaware Chancery Court, Mr Eisner and the other Disney directors prevailed on all counts. The case was chosen as one of the top defence wins of 2005 by The National Law Journal.

Mr Naftalis successfully won dismissal in favour of Kenneth Langone, former chair of the New York Stock Exchange compensation committee, of all charges brought against him by then-attorney general Eliot Spitzer relating to the compensation of NYSE chairman Richard Grasso. Following a decision by the appellate division of the New York State Supreme Court directing dismissal of the lawsuit, the attorney general announced he would not appeal and dropped the case.

He successfully represented the City of New York in the inquiry relating to the fire at the Deutsche Bank Building. No charges were brought against the City, any of its agencies or its officials.

He is counsel for significant figures and entities in the inquiries and related civil litigation concerning corporate accounting irregularities and backdating of stock options including the recent successful representation of the chairman and founder of Global Crossing. He represents United Rentals in various securities litigations and regulatory matters. Mr Naftalis also represented the former CFOs of Affiliated Computer Services, Cendant and Bristol-Myers Squibb, and the former CEO of Refco. He also defended a director and senior officer of Tyco in securities class action and ERISA litigation, the former CEO of Arthur Andersen in the Enron civil litigation and the former CEO of WorldCom in securities class action litigation.

Mr Naftalis received his AB from Rutgers University, his MA from Brown University and his LLB from Columbia Law School. He served as deputy chief of the criminal division in the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York. He also served as special counsel to the US Senate subcommittee investigating abuses in the nursing home industry. Mr Naftalis has been a member of the faculty at Columbia and Harvard law schools. He is the author or co-author of numerous books and articles including the leading work on the grand jury system, The Grand Jury: An Institution on Trial (with Judge Marvin E Frankel) and Sentencing: Helping Judges Do Their Jobs (also with Judge Frankel).