SEC Enforcement and Regulation of Financial Firms - Asset Managers, Broker-Dealers, and Private Funds

Leigh is currently a Managing Director, Deputy Chief Counsel at Charles Schwab & Co. In this role, she leads the Regulatory practice group and has primary responsibility over regulatory matters.

Prior to the Charles Schwab acquisition, Leigh spent almost nine years at TD Ameritrade, providing regulatory guidance and legal counsel in the areas of Operations, Financial Responsibility Rules, Futures & Forex, Treasury, and International, while also serving as the regulatory counsel for enforcement actions.

Leigh is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame with a Bachelor’s degree of Business Administration, Accounting. She began her career as an Examiner for the Chicago Board of Trade before obtaining her J.D. with a concertation in securities law from Catholic University in Washington, D.C. During and after law school Leigh worked at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in the Office of the Secretary and then the Division of Trading and Markets, Office of Broker-Dealer Financial Responsibility, where her key areas of focus were the Financial Responsibility and the Books and Records rules and implementing key aspects of Dodd-Frank.

As an Enforcement Division branch chief, Michael managed a team of SEC enforcement attorneys in investigating and prosecuting securities law violations, including matters involving complex financial fraud, market manipulation, insider trading and violations of broker-dealer, investment adviser and investment company regulations.

Applying his government experience in private practice, Michael represents public companies, financial institutions and their individual officers and directors in regulatory matters and civil litigation. With over 20 years of experience, Michael is adept at devising effective defense strategies to address legal risks across a broad spectrum of circumstances. He is often called upon to defend clients that are facing concurrent private actions and regulatory investigations, and to defend against claims involving complex legal or compliance issues.

In addition to handling investigations and litigation, he also regularly advises clients in connection with corporate governance matters, shareholder claims, financial restatements, internal investigations and Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, Inc. (FINRA) and stock exchange inquiries.

John Sikora is a member of the Litigation & Trial Department. Mr. Sikora represents companies and their officers and directors in SEC and FINRA enforcement investigations and examinations. Mr. Sikora’s clients include public companies, fund managers, investment advisers, and financial services firms. Mr. Sikora also advises clients on securities-related compliance.

Prior to joining Latham & Watkins, he was an Assistant Director in the Chicago Regional Office and in the Asset Management Unit of the SEC’s Enforcement Division, a national specialized unit that focuses on misconduct by investment advisers, investment companies, and private funds.

During his 16 year tenure at the SEC, Mr. Sikora was responsible for supervising all types of SEC enforcement activities, including investigations involving public company accounting fraud and other disclosure violations, misconduct by investment advisers, broker-dealers and auditors, and insider trading. Many of the investigations supervised by Mr. Sikora resulted in parallel prosecutions by the Department of Justice.

Mr. Sikora is a frequent speaker and panelist on securities law issues. Mr. Sikora earned the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst designation in April 2012.

Ann Gittleman is a managing director for the Expert Services practice. She focuses on providing expert forensic and dispute assistance in fraud and internal investigations, white collar investigations and compliance reviews. She is experienced in accounting and auditor malpractice matters, and related Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) and Generally Accepted Auditing Standards (GAAS) guidance and damages.

She has worked on U.S. regulatory investigations involving the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Department of Justice (DOJ). Furthermore, she has a background in forensic accounting, asset tracing, commercial disputes, commercial damages, and lost profits analysis. Ann works on bankruptcy investigations, as a financial advisor in U.S. bankruptcies, purchase price and post-acquisition disputes, and Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) reviews.

Ann is based in New York, has over 15 years of forensic accounting experience, and has led substantial international projects in the U.S., Europe, the Caribbean, and China. Ann has been retained as a testifying expert in numerous matters, including asset tracing, fraud and corruption, financial reporting, the application of GAAP and GAAS and damages calculations. She also frequently consults on complex accounting reporting and SEC matters.

Ann joined Kroll with the acquisition of Kinetic Partners, where she was a director and co-head of the New York Forensic and Dispute Services practice. Ann joined Kinetic Partners from a prestigious New York law firm where she practiced securities litigation and provided in-house forensic accounting consulting services. Previously, Ann worked on auditor negligence matters as an in-house forensic accountant and legal assistant at the Office of the General Counsel at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).

Prior to that, she was an auditor in the alternative investment management group at PwC in New York City, where she audited hedge funds, venture capital funds, private equity funds, and commodity pools.

Ann received her J.D. from Brooklyn Law School and her B.S./B.A. in both Accounting and Computer Information Science from Bryant University. She is a Certified Public Accountant, Certified in Financial Forensics, a Certified Insolvency and Restructuring Advisor, and Accredited in Business Valuation. Ann is also a licensed attorney admitted in both New York and Massachusetts, and a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, the Association of the Bar of the City of NY, and the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners.

Anne McKinley is the Assistant Director at the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission.