Commercial & Business Litigation
Wolf Haldenstein has decades of experience representing both plaintiffs and defendants in complex, multi-faceted litigation and arbitration in many different business areas. The Firm has an outstanding track record of success litigating complex commercial cases in a broad range of disputes, including shareholder disputes, breach of contract, business torts, real estate litigation, and corporate management disputes.
Wolf Haldenstein recognizes that each case is unique and that disputes often involve high stakes “save the business” situations. The Firm works tirelessly to ensure that every detail of each case is fully understood, and that each challenge is handled expeditiously. Wolf Haldenstein brings its extensive trial experience in hard-fought litigation to every dispute. The Firm believes that preparing each case expecting that it will go to trial is the best way to achieve the best possible outcome for its clients.
Corporate Investigations & Monitoring
Wolf Haldenstein has extensive experience in handling internal investigations for corporations, boards of directors, individuals, and private-sector entities. The Firm also handles private prosecutions and provides general corporate legal counseling and oversight services, frequently in highly sensitive contexts.
The Firm’s attorneys are extremely skilled in handling delicate and complex regulatory and compliance matters in a variety of cases, including labor and employment issues, civil rights violations, fraud, financial misconduct, and mismanagement of internal documents and assets. The Firm conducts thorough, efficient, discrete, and impartial investigations that minimize risk and exposure. The Firm’s goal is to assist our clients in avoiding public action altogether whenever possible.
Wolf Haldenstein has conducted investigations across a wide range of industries, from financial services and securities to health care and accounting. The Firm has helped clients to ascertain their exposure risk when faced with document demands and subpoenas; investigated alleged improprieties and provided findings and reports to federal and state authorities; and directed discrete inquiries on behalf of individuals victimized by inappropriate conduct while simultaneously minimizing public exposure.
Wolf Haldenstein provides advice to prevent or correct violations and encourage compliance while respecting the existing corporate culture, structure, and internal practices. The Firm advises on policy and procedure upgrades, document retention and management guidelines, and other in-house protocols.
Regulatory Defense
Wolf Haldenstein has excelled at represented individuals and businesses in a variety of governmental investigations, enforcement actions, and other administrative and regulatory proceedings. The Firm has represented broker-dealers, financial institutions and advisors, officers, board members, directors, and both public and private companies facing securities and commodities related investigations by the SEC, CFTC, DOJ, FINRA, NASD, NYSE, NASDAQ, and various state agencies.
Wolf Haldenstein provides representation on matters relating to fraud, insider or unauthorized trading, private placement offerings, books and records violations, municipal securities, ETFs, sales practice issues, suitability, variable products, market manipulation and other potential violations of industry practice. The Firm’s attorneys also have the experience to assist individuals facing internal investigations, a delicate situation which often requires outside advisement to provide adequate representation and navigate the inherent risks posed by that unique scenario.
The Firm also provides advice and counseling to encourage compliance and establish internal protocols to minimize risk and help avoid potential litigation and future violations of federal and state securities and commodities laws. This guidance may include the retention of experts, advisement on data or document preservation, or the preparation of effectual responses to subpoenas and regulatory inquiries.
White Collar Defense
Wolf Haldenstein defends individual and institutional clients in federal criminal cases, with a focus on white collar matters. The Firm also handles a wide array of criminal cases in New York State courts and is well-equipped to deal with criminal matters that have parallel civil and regulatory components.
The Firm handles defense against criminal actions brought by the Department of Justice, U.S. Attorneys’ Offices, the Office of the Inspector General and other federal and state law enforcement and regulatory agencies. These cases may include matters related to securities and mortgage fraud, tax fraud, market manipulation, RICO violations, insider trading, health care and procurement fraud, money laundering, anti-corruption violations, mail and wire fraud, embezzlement, customs violations, public corruption investigations, theft of trade secrets, criminal copyright infringement, criminal anti-counterfeiting, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) violations, racketeering, continuing criminal enterprises, hidden funds, and circumvention of trade restrictions, among many others.
Additionally, the Firm handles a wide variety of criminal matters in New York State Courts, including union corruption cases.
Criminal defense and investigations are delicate and serious matters that need to be handled with sensitivity, acumen, and discretion. The Firm makes every effort to examine all the facts and details of each case and to pursue all potential defenses in representing its clients. In every instance, the Firm always strives to reach a result that avoids prosecution.
ADR & Arbitration
Wolf Haldenstein provides alternative dispute resolution services to clients in a variety of areas, from business conflicts to civil and commercial disputes. The Firm also provides mediation and arbitration services through our team of skilled and experienced neutrals.
With a vast background of expertise and decades of experience, including a former Justice of the New York State Supreme Court, members of Wolf Haldenstein’s ADR & Arbitration practice are able to manage complex and delicate negotiations and facilitate the constructive dialogue necessary to achieve a satisfactory result. The Firm’s guiding objective is to help its clients avoid protracted, costly, and burdensome litigation by resolving their disputes through negotiation and agreement.
Wolf Haldenstein’s mediators and arbitrators are retained as neutrals to help disputing parties resolve their disagreements by mediation or a streamlined binding arbitration process. The neutrals guide the parties through a confidential, discussion-based process aimed at finding areas of agreement that will result in a mutually beneficial outcome. If a dispute requires a more rigorous, adjudicative method, the neutrals navigate the parties through arbitration toward a resolution.