Episode 173 -- Review of HHS-OIG Special Fraud Alert on Speaker Programs

Brian Whisler is a long-time white collar practitioner at Baker McKenzie. Brian joined me to discuss the new Biden Administration and the enforcement outlook from the Biden Department of Justice. Brian has a unique perspective since he served as part of the DOJ transition in 2001 for the incoming Bush Administration.

Brian has been a partner at Baker McKenzie for 12 years. Prior to joining Baker McKenzie, Brian served for fifteen years as a federal prosecutor with the US Department of Justice. During that time, he was the Criminal Chief Assistant US Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia, Richmond, overseeing and prosecuting cases ranging from white collar crime, violent crime, public corruption, and terrorism. His trial practice focused predominantly on white collar cases, including health care fraud, securities fraud, public corruption, money laundering and tax fraud. He previously served as an Assistant US Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina for ten years, where he focused on white collar prosecutions and received the Attorney General’s Award for his prosecutions in a money laundering investigation resulting in convictions of more than 25 defendants after three jury trials and multiple guilty pleas.

Brian has extensive federal trial and appellate experience, having tried over 30 cases to verdict and argued more than 40 cases at the federal appellate level. He is experienced in handling a broad range of civil and criminal matters, including cases implicating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, False Claims Act, Anti-Money Laundering laws, Health Care Fraud, Securities Fraud, and Procurement Fraud.

Brian has led multijurisdictional internal investigations and provided regulatory advice to multinational and domestic clients across many sectors, including oil and gas services, pharmaceuticals, financial services, manufacturing, and telecommunications. Additionally, he has developed compliance programs for Fortune 50 corporate clients, advised Boards and Audit Committees, guided companies and individuals in government investigations in multiple global jurisdictions and defended clients in criminal and civil litigation. He also represents companies and individual clients in investigations before multilateral institutions, including the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, as well as the US Agency for International Development, the United Nations, and the Global Fund.