ABOUT
Former SEC Enforcement Director and General Counsel Dick Walker is a Partner in the firm’s Special Matters & Government Investigations practice group, twice named “White Collar Practice Group of the Year” by Law360. As part of the firm’s Securities Regulation and Enforcement practice, Dick specializes in crisis management, government and internal investigations (including cross-border), complex financial litigation matters, including litigation assessment, corporate governance, and compliance issues. Dick represents banks, law firms, accounting firms, regulated entities and public companies who benefit from his ten years as a high-ranking SEC official and almost fourteen years as Global General Counsel for Deutsche Bank, a large international financial institution.
While at Deutsche Bank, Dick held a number of senior positions, which included at various times serving as Vice Chairman, a member of the Bank’s Global Executive Committee, Global General Counsel and Global Head of Compliance. He oversaw the Bank’s legal and compliance departments worldwide. He was responsible for international and U.S. banking, securities, commodities, and other financial regulations as well as government investigations, transactional matters, corporate governance and related matters, data privacy, and litigation.
Prior to joining Deutsche Bank, Dick served as the Director of the Division of Enforcement and prior to that, as General Counsel of the Securities and Exchange Commission after starting his career as Regional Director of the Northeast Regional Office. He is the only person in history who has served the SEC as both Enforcement Director and General Counsel.
While at the SEC, Dick stepped up the Commission’s attack against earnings management and other financial reporting abuses with cases including W.R. Grace, Cendant, Livent, McKesson, Microstrategy, and Sunbeam. He also spearheaded efforts to fight microcap fraud and teamed up with the FBI and the Department of Justice to halt infiltration of organized crime into our markets. He also established the Office of Internet Fraud to combat the growing use of the internet in fraudulent securities activities; and oversaw a number of large successful insider trading cases and participated in the government’s victory in the Supreme Court in the O’Hagan case, which validated the misappropriation theory of insider trading. Dick was awarded the Presidential Rank Distinguished Service Award (the highest federal award for public service), the SEC’s Distinguished Service Award, and the Chairman’s Award of Excellence.
In addition to his government and in-house experiences, Dick was a litigation partner at a top AmLaw 100 law firm earlier in his career. Upon graduating from law school he clerked for Chief Judge Collins J. Seitz of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
Dick is an adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
