Biography: Business Crime Defence

Jim Walden is a litigation partner in the New York office, and co-chair of the firm's white-collar defence and investigations group.

Mr Walden defends companies in governmental investigations, regulatory actions, and civil disputes. He has conducted many corporate internal investigations, including matters involving allegations of securities and other financial frauds, antitrust activity, insider trading, computer crimes, money laundering, medical device fraud, tax violations and violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and the False Claims Act. In the financial industry, he has represented banks, private equity and venture capital firms, broker-dealers and hedge funds.

Mr Walden has represented many corporate executives in various high-profile criminal cases; not one of his clients has served a prison sentence. His individual clients have included the former CEO of AIG Financial Products division; the CEO of another global financial services firm; the general counsel of a technology company; the managing partner of a New York hedge fund; the CFO, general counsel and chief investment officer of an energy-trading company; the chief operating officer of an online-payment company; and dozens of other executives.

Before joining Gibson Dunn, Mr Walden served as a federal prosecutor for almost nine years. During his service with the US Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York, he led an extensive collection of cases, and established himself among its most experienced litigators. During his tenure, he coordinated enforcement programmes with authorities from Hong Kong and Thailand. His work earned many awards and he was profiled in The New York Times and the New York Daily News. He was named a Law360 White Collar MVP in 2011.