Akin Gump announced that Claudius Modesti, former Director of Enforcement at the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), has joined the firm as a partner in its white collar defense and government investigations practice in Washington, D.C.
Mr. Modesti, prior to a 14-year tenure at the PCAOB, also served with the Fraud Section of the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division, as a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) enforcement attorney and as a federal prosecutor with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia.
At Akin Gump, he will counsel and defend accounting firms, regulated entities, corporations and individuals in regulatory investigations and enforcement proceedings involving the PCAOB and SEC, in addition to advising on other federal or state criminal investigations.
Mr. Modesti was the PCAOB’s first enforcement director, having led the team that built the enforcement group from its inception. He oversaw the development of the PCAOB’s policies and procedures for identifying matters for investigation and led more than 100 such investigations annually of U.S.- and foreign-based accounting firms, with many of them also requiring coordinating parallel investigations with the SEC. Mr. Modesti’s role also included overseeing the Board’s litigation process. In addition, Mr. Modesti played a key role in the PCAOB’s collaboration with its foreign regulator counterparts, particularly as it related to international enforcement cooperation.
About Claudius Modesti
Mr. Modesti began his career in private practice before moving to the public sector and a clerkship for Judge J. Frederick Motz of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland. He then worked at the SEC’s Division of Enforcement, investigating numerous securities law violations, including insider trading, investment advisor breaches, accounting fraud, auditor liability and Ponzi schemes.
After several years at the SEC, Mr. Modesti moved to the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division Fraud Section, where he investigated, indicted and prosecuted white collar crimes. He had substantial involvement in the criminal investigation of the tobacco industry, the investigation of bribery allegations involving the Salt Lake Olympic Committee, and other high-profile fraud matters, including a two-month securities and bank fraud trial in California of the former chief financial officer of a Silicon Valley media product company.
Mr. Modesti subsequently moved to the U.S. Attorney’s office in the Eastern District of Virginia, where he was assigned to the Financial Crimes and Public Corruption Unit and served as the Corporate Fraud Coordinator for the office. He co-led an investigation of two publicly traded companies for securities fraud and wire fraud and was the principal liaison with the SEC, FINRA and other regulators in efforts to develop new regulatory relationships and investigations for the Eastern District.
Hired by William J. McDonough, the first Chairman of the PCAOB, Mr. Modesti began at the PCAOB in 2004 and worked during his tenure there on a broad range of audit matters including fraud, revenue recognition, asset impairment, illegal acts, disclosure, noncooperation, independence and other disciplinary issues.