Michael S. Diamant is a senior associate in the Washington, D.C. office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. His practice focuses on white collar criminal defense, internal investigations, and corporate compliance.
Mr. Diamant has broad white collar defense experience representing corporations and corporate executives facing criminal and regulatory charges. He has represented clients in an array of matters, including accounting fraud and antitrust violations, before the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Mr. Diamant also has managed numerous internal investigations for publicly traded corporations and conducted fieldwork—including more than 150 witness interviews—in eleven different countries on four continents. In the area of corporate compliance, Mr. Diamant regularly advises major corporations on the structure and effectiveness of their compliance programs. This often includes reviewing reporting mechanisms, internal payment controls, and compliance messaging, as well as drafting new compliance materials, such as ethics and anti-corruption handbooks.
Among Mr. Diamant’s substantive areas of expertise is the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”). Mr. Diamant conducts internal investigations for corporations regarding possible violations of the FCPA and assists them in complying with government subpoenas and negotiating settlements with enforcement agencies. He also routinely advises corporations on the adequacy of the design and implementation of their FCPA compliance programs. Mr. Diamant has designed entire anti-bribery compliance programs, as well as guidance and payment approval materials, for Fortune 100 corporations. He also frequently conducts FCPA training for in-house counsel, corporate executives, and line employees. In addition to his work for clients, Mr. Diamant has held leadership roles in the FCPA compliance monitorships of Siemens AG and Statoil ASA.
Mr. Diamant also writes and speaks on issues of FCPA compliance and enforcement. Notable speaking engagements include the following:
- “FCPA Compliance: Third Party Due Diligence – Minimizing Corruption Risks When Using Foreign Agents, Distributors and Other Intermediaries” (Washington, D.C.; August 2010), Strafford Publications Webcast;
- “Recent Developments – International Anti-Corruption Compliance” (Washington, D.C.; July 2010), presentation to the Global Business Interest Group of the Ethics & Compliance Officer Association;
- “FCPA & Bribery: Avoiding Pitfalls in China” (Baltimore, Maryland; June 2010), presenter at ExporTech China conference, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Commerce;
- “An Overview of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act” (Washington, D.C.; April 2010), guest lecture at the George Washington University School of Business;
- “Corruption Crackdown: The FCPA and Recent Enforcement Trends” (Oslo, Norway; November 2009), hosted by PricewaterhouseCoopers; and
- “Doing Business Internationally: Minimizing FCPA Risk Exposure” (McLean, Virginia; May 2008).
Mr. Diamant’s recent academic and professional publications on the FCPA and related topics include the following:
- “The British Are Coming!: Britain Changes Its Law on Foreign Bribery and Joins the International Fight Against Corruption,” 46 Tex. Int’l. L.J. (2010) (forthcoming) (with F. Joseph Warin and Lord Charles Falconer);
- “FCPA Compliance in China and the Gifts and Hospitality Challenge,” 5 Va. L. & Bus. Rev. 33 (2010) (with F. Joseph Warin and Jill M. Pfenning); and
- “Use of ‘Conscious Avoidance’ Doctrine in Frederic Bourke Conviction Expands Corporate Executives’ FCPA Exposure,” Securities Docket (July 22, 2009) (with F. Joseph Warin and Matthew P. Hampton).
Mr. Diamant clerked for the Honorable Fortunato P. Benavides of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He is a 2003 magna cum laude graduate of the Georgetown University Law Center, where he was inducted into the Order of the Coif. At Georgetown, he served as Senior Articles & Notes Editor of the American Criminal Law Review and authored the article on the False Claims Act for the Seventeenth Survey of White Collar Crime, 39 Am. Crim. L. Rev. 491 (2002). In 2000, Mr. Diamant received his Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service magna cum laude from Georgetown’s Walsh School of Foreign Service, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.