Deborah Meshulam is one of the leaders of DLA Piper’s Securities Enforcement practice. She is an experienced trial lawyer and strategic counselor who has more than two decades of experience defending and trying the full range of cases arising from allegations of securities law violations, including FCPA and accounting fraud claims, and related breaches of fiduciary duty. She represents multinational corporations, board committees, regulated entities and individuals in high-stakes investigations and litigation conducted by the SEC and DOJ. She also represents clients in CFTC, FINRA, PCAOB investigations as well as those conducted by state securities authorities. She conducts cross-border internal and independent investigations and regularly advises clients on facing potential civil and criminal inquiries related to securities and accounting fraud, claims of FCPA violations, insider trading, employee misconduct and other violations. She also advises clients on litigation avoidance and compliance, including insider trading policies and procedures. She also counsels clients on a wide range of corporate governance and regulatory matters, including those related to the application of securities laws to digital assets and blockchain platforms. She has written on securities law and compliance issues and is a frequent speaker at professional programs on these topics. Deborah has been repeatedly recognized by legal industry publications including most recently in Chambers USA 2022 for Securities Litigation, Global Investigations Review - Who's Who Legal Global Leader, Investigations, and The Legal 500 for her work in Fintech and Securities Litigation-Defense. She is a past recipient of the Burton Award for Legal Achievement, run in alliance with the Law Library of Congress. She is also recognized as a Washington DC Super Lawyer in Securities Litigation.

Prior to joining DLA Piper, Ms. Meshulam served for seven years as Assistant Chief Litigation Counsel for the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Division of Enforcement, a senior level position. As lead trial counsel, she prosecuted securities enforcement cases, including jury trials, involving complex financial fraud, accounting, corruption, market manipulation, insider trading, sales practice fraud, Ponzi schemes and public offering fraud and disclosure issues.

At DLA Piper, Ms. Meshulam represents and has successfully defended individual and corporate clients in SEC and Department of Justice (DOJ) investigations relating to claims of securities law and FCPA violations. She counsels clients on compliance, regulatory and corporate governance matters, including issues relating to auditor independence requirements. She also counsels clients on Sarbanes-Oxley and Dodd Frank whistleblower matters. Ms. Meshulam regularly conducts investigations on behalf of multinational companies or their audit committees, often relating to FCPA questions, accounting issues, alleged securities law violations and employee misconduct. She also represents clients in investigations conducted by Congress, state securities authorities, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), FINRA and Exchanges.

In her investigations practice, Ms. Meshulam leads and conducts investigations, including cross border investigations, involving a variety of industries and sectors including financial services, defense, energy, consumer, real estate, and healthcare. She has conducted and led investigations involving market manipulation claims, FCPA allegations and accounting fraud claims in China, India, Kazakhstan and Kuwait as well as in Europe. Ms. Meshulam has obtained SEC no-action and DOJ declination decisions in several such matters. In one of her recent matters, she persuaded the SEC to close an accounting fraud investigation against a global corporation with no action. In another recent matter she successfully resolved an SEC investigation involving complex financial products and a number of affiliated financial services companies.

Ms. Meshulam’s regulatory counselling practice includes advising clients on a wide range of corporate governance and regulatory matters, including financial reporting and disclosure issues, design and implementation of compliance programs under the securities laws and the FCPA as well as issues faced by brokers/dealers, investment advisers and other regulated entities. She also represents clients in rulemaking proceedings and in SEC inquiries from the Divisions of Corporate Finance and Trading and Markets, the Office of Chief Accountant and the Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations.

She is an Audit Committee Member of the non-profit organization, Global Fund to End Modern Slavery.

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