Profile details
About Kimberly Zelnick
Kim heads up the firm’s financial institutions disputes group and is a partner in our global investigations and complex litigation practice group, based in New York.
Kim focuses her practice on crisis management as well as on the defense of white-collar criminal and SEC enforcement investigations and related civil litigation. She represents institutions and individuals in global investigations involving allegations of bribery, fraud, market manipulation, money laundering, tax evasion, terrorist financing, cartel and other anticompetitive activity.
Kim is also a key member of our data crisis response team and has deep experience managing global, cross-border, incidents. Having worked on some of the most complex international matters, she is familiar with coordinating similar matters with local counsel around the globe. She also understands how to leverage the entire team’s resources, relationships with regulators, and different practice experience to craft a holistic response that defends each aspect of your business.
Kim is also the global co-head of our sanctions and trade group and regularly advises clients on US economic sanctions and export controls, data privacy and cybersecurity, as well as matters related to FCPA compliance.
Recent work
Kim’s experience includes representing:
- an international investment bank in parallel DOJ, SEC and UK FCA investigations concerning allegations of corruption, securities fraud and embezzlement in connection with infrastructure projects in Africa;
- one of the world’s largest banks in parallel investigations by the DOJ, UK FCA and various European regulators into alleged manipulation and collusion in the setting of prices for gold and other precious metals;
- Marriott on its multijurisdictional response to the Starwood data incident;
- a Fortune 500 manufacturing company in an inquiry conducted by the DOJ into alleged corrupt payments in the Middle East;
- a major US private equity firm in a $900m transaction in which a sanctioned Iranian entity had a significant interest;
- winning the acquittal in a federal jury trial of Raoul Weil, former CEO of UBS Private Banking, the most senior banker charged in the DOJ’s long-running crackdown on Swiss banks, for allegedly conspiring to assist US taxpayers evade billions of US taxes on assets secretly held in Switzerland; and
- financial institutions, corporates and private equity clients on a range of economic sanctions compliance issues, including before the US Department of State and Office of Foreign Assets Control.
Qualifications
Education
- JD, Yale Law School, essays editor for the Yale Law Journal and National Champion of the ABA Appellate Advocacy Competition.
- BA, magna cum laude, Williams College, Phi Beta Kappa.
Professional
- Admitted to practice in the State of New York and before the US District Courts for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York.
- Served as law clerk to the Honorable José A. Cabranes of the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, 2004 to 2005.