Prior to re-joining the firm, Mr. Burns served in senior positions in both the Criminal Division and National Security Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. Most recently, he served as Acting Assistant Attorney General of the Criminal Division, where he led more than 600 federal prosecutors who conducted investigations and prosecutions involving securities fraud, health care fraud, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act violations, public corruption, cybercrime, intellectual property theft, money laundering, Bank Secrecy Act violations, child exploitation, international narcotics trafficking, human rights violations, organized and transnational crime, gang violence, and other crimes, as well as matters involving international affairs and sensitive law enforcement techniques.  Prior to joining the Criminal Division, Mr. Burns served as the Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the National Security Division from September 2018 to December 2020.  In that role, he supervised the Division’s investigations and prosecutions, including counterterrorism, counterintelligence, economic espionage, cyber hacking, FARA, disclosure of classified information, and sanctions and export controls matters.  He also spent five years as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York, Criminal Division, from 2000 to 2005.

Most recently, Mr. Burns has been listed in Best Lawyers® 2023 for work on Criminal Defense: White-Collar matters.  Additionally, Mr. Burns has been recognized by Chambers USA – America’s Leading Business Lawyers as a leading White Collar attorney in the District of Columbia and Who’s Who Legal and Global Investigations Review (GIR) recognized him as a leading investigations lawyer, deemed “excellent” for his work across “federal, state, and regulatory investigations”.  Who’s Who Legal also recognized Mr. Burns as a leading lawyer in the area of Business Crime Defense.

Representative experience:

• Represented a large financial institution in investigations of manipulation of interest rate benchmarks, including LIBOR, conducted by the Criminal and Antitrust Divisions of the DOJ, the CFTC, the SEC, the UK Financial Services Authority, and numerous other international criminal, competition, and regulatory authorities.
• Defended the former general counsel of a major regional brokerage firm in a three-week securities enforcement trial before the SEC’s chief administrative law judge and obtained dismissal of all claims.
• Represented a special committee of the board of directors of a Canadian pharmaceutical company relating to allegations of accounting fraud.
• Defended a government contractor in a multi-year False Claims Act investigation conducted by the DOJ and Department of Defense.
• Defended a marine company executive in a criminal price fixing case prosecuted by the Antitrust Division of the DOJ.
• Represented a large engineering and infrastructure company in an investigation conducted by the Public Integrity Section of the DOJ.
• Represented a United States Congressman in a public corruption investigation conducted by a United States Attorney’s Office.
• Represented a software company executive in a DOJ False Claims Act investigation.
• Represented an investment bank in an investigation conducted by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority involving initial public offering allocations.
• Represented the controller of a large public company in an FCPA investigation conducted by the DOJ and the SEC.
• Represented the president of a Brazilian tobacco company in an FCPA investigation conducted by the DOJ and the SEC.
• Represented a senior officer of an investment bank in an insider trading investigation conducted by the New York Attorney General’s Office and the SEC.
• Represented the former chief financial officer of a large commercial bank in an accounting fraud investigation conducted by the DOJ and the SEC.
• Defended the president of a Canadian manufacturing company in a criminal antitrust prosecution brought by the Antitrust Division of the DOJ.

Mr. Burns graduated in 1995 from Columbia Law School, where he was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar and an Articles Editor of the Columbia Business Law Review.  He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in economics from Boston College in 1991.