Robert Cohen, formerly of the SEC Division of Enforcement’s Cyber Unit, is joining Davis Polk & Wardwell. Photo: Jason Doiy/ALM

After 15 years at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Robert Cohen is joining Davis Polk & Wardwell as a partner in Washington, D.C.

Cohen was most recently the SEC’s first-ever chief of the division of enforcement’s cyber unit, a position created in 2017, and was formerly co-chief of the SEC’s market abuse unit. At Davis Polk, he will be a member of the firm’s white-collar criminal defense and investigations group within the litigation department. Cohen left the SEC in early August and will join Davis Polk in October.

“The decision about the firm was pretty easy,” Cohen said in an interview. “It’s obviously one of the premier global law firms with a very strong commitment to SEC enforcement work.”

Cohen declined to discuss what other opportunities he considered and whether others from the SEC would follow his path to Davis Polk.

Cohen said he was attracted to Davis Polk because of its SEC enforcement work, deep financial institutions practice and sophisticated clients. When Cohen began thinking about the next 15 years of his career earlier in 2019, he decided that he wanted to take what he learned in government to counsel clients in the private sector, he said.

Davis Polk managing partner Neil Barr praised Cohen as a “tremendous resource” for the firm’s clients.

“[Cohen] brings a unique mix of top-level SEC experience in multiple core enforcement areas,” Barr said in a statement. “He will further extend our legacy of prominence in the SEC enforcement space and joins an extraordinary team of former government officials in our Washington office, including litigators who have held high-ranking positions with the SEC, DOJ, FTC, White House and FBI.”

As the chief of the cyber unit at SEC, Cohen supervised an investigation into whether professional boxer Floyd Mayweather and music producer Khaled Khaled, also known as “DJ Khaled,” failed to disclose payments they received for promoting investments in initial coin offerings. He also supervised an investigation into an alleged fraud by Centra Tech Inc. in its $32 million initial coin offering regarding “CTR Tokens.” In his earlier role as co-chief of the market abuse unit, he investigated matters involving insider trading and market manipulation cases.

Neil MacBride, co-chair of the white-collar criminal defense and investigations group, said in a statement that Cohen is “held in the highest regard for his judgment and integrity, both by senior SEC staff around the country and the white-collar bar.” At the time of his departure from the SEC at the end of July, SEC chairman Jay Clayton said he was particularly grateful for Cohen’s thankfulness, expertise and leadership in leading the formation of the cyber unit.