MoFo’s National Security Practice Named a 2022 Practice Group of the Year by Law360

Law360 has selected MoFo’s National Security practice as a 2022 Practice Group of the Year for Compliance, highlighting the team’s extensive experience counseling clients on a broad range of regulatory, compliance, investigatory, and enforcement matters pertaining to national security.

MoFo’s National Security practice, led by John Smith and Brandon Van Grack, is unique among national security and trade practices. Our deep bench of former senior officials understand the inner workings of the Executive Branch in their imposition, analysis, and enforcement of U.S. economic sanctions and export controls, and their expectations regarding corporate compliance programs, apparent violations, and approaches to OFAC, DOJ, BIS, and the U.S. government generally.

Buttressed by the deepest bench of former senior OFAC officials of any firm, the team includes former senior officials from the Department of the Treasury, Department of Justice (DOJ), Department of Defense (DOD), Department of State, National Security Council, Defense Intelligence Agency, and Office of the Director of National Intelligence, as well as former federal and state prosecutors. We are the only firm globally with three former OFAC officials plus a senior attorney who managed the DOJ’s Voluntary Self-Disclosure program for sanctions and export controls violations. Complementing the U.S. team, our global team includes 17 senior trade controls practitioners—including former government officials—in seven countries, including in the EU, UK, Hong Kong, Japan, and Singapore.

With two team members who served as senior trade officials at DOJ and DOD, we also possess broad and deep export controls expertise to ensure that clients with trade controls issues receive full service no matter the issue. Export controls now occupy a central role in the U.S. government’s strategy to counter some of our nation’s most serious national security challenges, making it critical for companies to stay abreast of the myriad of changes and updates to export controls.

We are also uniquely positioned to advise on CFIUS matters—our team includes former officials from DOJ, DOD, Treasury, and Health and Human Services who led and managed CFIUS reviews across four administrations.