Joon H. Kim

Joon H. Kim’s practice focuses on white-collar criminal defense, internal corporate investigations, regulatory enforcement, and crisis management, as well as complex commercial litigation and arbitration.

Firm/Organization: Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP

Blogs: Cleary Enforcement Watch

Latest Articles

Cleary Enforcement Watch

DOJ Guidance on Corporate Compliance Programs: A Checklist for Directors

By Jennifer Kennedy Park, Joon H. Kim, Jonathan S. Kolodner & Lisa Vicens on May 6, 2019

As discussed in our most recent blog post, on April 30, 2019, the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ” or “the Department”) announced updated guidance for the Criminal Division’s Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs (“the Guidance”). The Guidance is relevant to the exercise of prosecutorial discretion in conducting an investigation of a corporation, determining whether to bring charges, negotiating plea or other agreements, applying sentencing guidelines and appointing monitors.[1] The…

Cleary Enforcement Watch

DOJ Updates Guidance for Evaluating Corporate Compliance Programs

By Jennifer Kennedy Park, Joon H. Kim, Jonathan S. Kolodner & Lisa Vicens on May 3, 2019

On April 30, 2019, the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice announced updated guidance for the Criminal Division’s Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs (“the Guidance”) in charging and resolving criminal cases. This memorandum highlights key updates and discusses the themes present across versions of the Guidance. Overall, this newest version places greater emphasis on distilling “lessons learned” from misconduct, and on incorporating those lessons into the compliance program using objective metrics collected from…

Cleary Enforcement Watch

U.S. Supreme Court Requires Foreign State-Owned Corporation to Comply With Contempt Order in Mueller Investigation

By Jonathan I. Blackman, Joon H. Kim, Jonathan S. Kolodner, Rahul Mukhi, Boaz S. Morag, Diarra M. Guthrie & Katie Sheridan on January 14, 2019

As discussed in Cleary Gottlieb’s December 21, 2018 Alert Memorandum, on December 18, 2018, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit issued an important ruling in In re Grand Jury Subpoena, holding, inter alia, that foreign state-owned corporations are subject to criminal jurisdiction in the United States and upholding Special Counsel Mueller’s authority to serve and enforce a grand jury subpoena on a sovereign entity. The foreign state-owned corporation subsequently sought…

Cleary Enforcement Watch

Second Circuit Denies Gupta Appeal of Insider Trading Conviction—Continuing to Give Broad Meaning to “Personal Benefit” Requirement

By Joon H. Kim, Rahul Mukhi, Alex Janghorbani, Shannon Daugherty & Destiny D. Dike on January 11, 2019

On January 11, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals denied the appeal of Rajat Gupta, who was seeking to undo his insider trading conviction. Relying on the Second Circuit’s decision in United States v. Newman, Gupta argued that—to satisfy the requirement that Gupta personally benefit from tipping inside information—the Government must show “a quid pro quo – in which [Gupta] receive[d] an ‘objective, consequential . . . gain of a pecuniary or similarly valuable nature.’”…

Cleary Enforcement Watch

D.C. Circuit Rules in Special Counsel Mueller Investigation That State-Owned Corporations Are Subject to Criminal Jurisdiction in the United States

By Carmine Boccuzzi, Joon H. Kim, Jonathan S. Kolodner, Rahul Mukhi & Rathna Ramamurthi on December 21, 2018

On December 18, 2018, the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals issued an important ruling in In re Grand Jury Subpoena, holding that foreign state-owned corporations are subject to criminal jurisdiction in the United States and that the exceptions to sovereign immunity set forth in the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (the “FSIA”)[1] apply to criminal as well as to civil cases.[2] The court also rejected the foreign sovereign entity’s argument…

Cleary Enforcement Watch

CFTC Announces Highest Aggregate Whistleblower Award to Date, Totaling More Than $45 Million

By Joon H. Kim, Matthew C. Solomon & Armine (Inna) Sanamyan on August 14, 2018

On August 2, 2018, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (the “CFTC”) announced multiple whistleblower awards totaling more than $45 million.[1] Although this is only the seventh such aggregate award announced by the CFTC since the inception of its whistleblower program in October 2011,[2] it is the Commission’s highest to date, and comes weeks after the agency’s announcement of two such awards last month. This recent activity, which follows a two-year hiatus…

Cleary Enforcement Watch

Two Strikes and You’re Out: The Litvak Saga Comes to an End

By Joon H. Kim, Jennifer Kennedy Park, Nowell D. Bamberger, Alex Janghorbani & Donna Xu on August 9, 2018

On Monday, following two reversals of convictions, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Connecticut moved to dismiss the sole securities fraud claim remaining against former Jefferies bond trader, Jesse Litvak, bringing an end to the 5 1/2-year long case against him.[1] During the case’s winding procedural path, the Government twice secured convictions against Litvak by jury trial—on the theory that Litvak’s alleged misstatements about his own costs and profit margins for…

Cleary Enforcement Watch

Government Moves to Voluntarily Dismiss Remaining Charge Against Jesse Litvak, Foregoing a Third Trial

By Joon H. Kim, Jennifer Kennedy Park, Nowell D. Bamberger & Alex Janghorbani on July 31, 2018

The long-running criminal case against Jesse Litvak seems to have come to an end, with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Connecticut filing a motion yesterday seeking voluntary dismissal of the sole remaining charge.[1] This action—which has resulted in the government twice obtaining a criminal conviction against Litvak, only to see both convictions overturned by the Second Circuit—raised somewhat novel questions of the materiality of information a broker-dealer provides about its…

Cleary Enforcement Watch

Potential SEC Inquiry: Improper Rounding Up of EPS

By Joon H. Kim, Pamela L. Marcogliese & Matthew C. Solomon on June 25, 2018

A recent report in the Wall Street Journal, drawing on a source “familiar with the matter”, indicates that the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Division of Enforcement has launched a probe into whether certain issuers may have improperly rounded up their earnings per share to the next higher cent in quarterly reports. While the SEC has neither confirmed the report nor otherwise disclosed the existence of any such investigation, the Journal reports that the SEC has…

Cleary Enforcement Watch

Supreme Court Holds Mandatory Federal Restitution Statute Does Not Cover Certain Professional Costs Incurred by Corporate Victims

By Joon H. Kim, Rahul Mukhi, Rusty Feldman & Samantha Del Duca on June 11, 2018

On May 29, 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an unanimous opinion in Lagos v. United States. Lagos presented the issue of whether costs incurred during and as a result of a corporate victim’s investigation (rather than a governmental investigation) must be reimbursed by a criminal defendant under the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act (“MVRA”). Resolving a circuit split, the Court narrowly held that restitution under the MVRA “does not cover the costs of a private…

Joon H. Kim

DOJ Guidance on Corporate Compliance Programs: A Checklist for Directors

DOJ Updates Guidance for Evaluating Corporate Compliance Programs

U.S. Supreme Court Requires Foreign State-Owned Corporation to Comply With Contempt Order in Mueller Investigation

Second Circuit Denies Gupta Appeal of Insider Trading Conviction—Continuing to Give Broad Meaning to “Personal Benefit” Requirement

D.C. Circuit Rules in Special Counsel Mueller Investigation That State-Owned Corporations Are Subject to Criminal Jurisdiction in the United States

CFTC Announces Highest Aggregate Whistleblower Award to Date, Totaling More Than $45 Million

Two Strikes and You’re Out: The Litvak Saga Comes to an End

Government Moves to Voluntarily Dismiss Remaining Charge Against Jesse Litvak, Foregoing a Third Trial

Potential SEC Inquiry: Improper Rounding Up of EPS

Supreme Court Holds Mandatory Federal Restitution Statute Does Not Cover Certain Professional Costs Incurred by Corporate Victims

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