Davis Polk today announced that veteran prosecutor and senior Department of Justice official Daniel Kahn will join the firm as a partner in the White Collar Defense & Investigations practice in Washington DC. He will focus on representing clients in criminal and regulatory investigations, as well as in civil and criminal trials.
“Dan joins a phenomenal group of Davis Polk lawyers in Washington, and his substantial experience and impressive track record at DOJ, in the United States and abroad, will be a significant asset to our preeminent white collar team,” said Neil Barr, Davis Polk’s Managing Partner. “We are excited to welcome Dan back to Davis Polk.”
Mr. Kahn will join Davis Polk from the Department of Justice, where he served in a number of senior positions, including most recently as acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the Criminal Division, supervising the Fraud Section and Appellate Section. Prior to that, he served as acting Chief of the Fraud Section and Chief of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) Unit. As acting Chief of the Fraud Section, Mr. Kahn supervised approximately 180 prosecutors and managed the day-to-day operations of the Fraud Section. He directly oversaw the FCPA Unit, Market Integrity and Major Frauds Unit, Health Care Fraud Unit, and Strategy, Policy and Training Unit, including all investigations, prosecutions, corporate resolutions and compliance monitorships. These cases involved FCPA and sanctions violations, commodities and securities fraud, healthcare fraud, digital currency, fintech, consumer fraud, procurement fraud, financial institutions fraud, and money laundering.
As Chief of the FCPA Unit from 2016 to 2019, Mr. Kahn managed all FCPA and FCPA-related investigations, prosecutions and resolutions in the Department of Justice, which included cases involving every major industry sector and geographic region. He led the substantial expansion of coordination and cooperation with foreign authorities in international corruption probes, working with authorities from countries around the globe, overseeing more than a dozen coordinated resolutions and routinely representing the United States before global anti-corruption bodies. These complex multi-national investigations often involved coordination with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Federal Reserve Board and multilateral development banks, among other regulators. Mr. Kahn also supervised and oversaw the selection of approximately 20 FCPA monitors during his tenure as Unit Chief, and oversaw the revisions and updates to A Resource Guide to the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
“Dan is an incredibly talented lawyer. He is highly respected in the white collar space, and he has built a second-to-none reputation in his many years of distinguished government service,” said Angela Burgess, co-head of Davis Polk’s White Collar Defense & Investigations practice. “We are thrilled to welcome him back to the firm.”
Dan Kahn said, “My time at DOJ was an extremely rewarding chapter of my career. I had the privilege of working on significant white collar enforcement and policy matters with some of the most talented and dedicated professionals, both within DOJ and at U.S. regulatory and foreign enforcement authorities. As I transition back to private practice, I am very excited to return to Davis Polk, where I began my legal career. I look forward to working with the firm’s exceptional white collar team and using my experience to help clients navigate their most sensitive issues.”
Mr. Kahn joined the Fraud Section as a trial lawyer in 2010, and became an Assistant Chief in the FCPA Unit in 2013 before becoming the Chief of that Unit in 2016. He was promoted to Senior Deputy Chief of the Fraud Section in 2019, and to acting Chief of the Fraud Section in 2020. In his 11 years in the Fraud Section, Mr. Kahn supervised dozens of trials, including FCPA, securities fraud, wire fraud and money laundering trials. He also oversaw more than 40 corporate resolutions and was the lead prosecutor in 10 corporate resolutions. Mr. Kahn twice earned the Assistant Attorney General’s Award for Exceptional Service, as well as the Assistant Attorney General’s Award for Distinguished Service, and was selected as DOJ’s liaison to the ABA Standards Committee on Monitors.
Prior to joining DOJ, Mr. Kahn spent more than six years as an associate at Davis Polk, where he worked on a number of complex corporate matters and represented companies facing allegations and investigations relating to securities fraud, accounting fraud and antitrust violations. In addition, in a pro bono matter, Mr. Kahn helped secure the retrial and acquittal of a defendant wrongfully convicted of murder, and then successfully first-chaired a trial against the State of New York under New York’s wrongful conviction statute. Mr. Kahn also served for 10 years on the board of directors of the Congressional Hunger Center.
Mr. Kahn received his J.D., cum laude, from Harvard Law School and B.S., summa cum laude, from Cornell University. He is a Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School and an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown Law.
