Christian Kemnitz

Financial Markets Litigation and Enforcement

Christian Kemnitz devotes his practice to the defense of financial services firms in litigation, regulatory enforcement proceedings and internal investigations. His work frequently involves disputes over futures, options, swaps, securities and other complex financial products. In particular, he has extensive experience defending matters relating to spoofing, manipulation and other forms of disruptive trading.

Chris' work on financial services litigation includes proposed class actions brought under securities laws. He also frequently represents broker-dealers in civil disputes, including arbitration claims brought by customers. In this work, Chris has a long and successful record at arbitration hearings. In the heavily regulated field of financial services, he also handles enforcement proceedings before the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC), Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), self-regulatory bodies, and at stock, option and futures exchanges.

Outside of financial services, Chris has litigated employment, product liability and class action matters, as well as disputes within partnerships and closely held corporations. Clients also seek his counsel on antitrust issues, where Chris' experience includes pre-merger regulatory review, criminal investigations and class actions by direct and indirect purchasers.

Chris also advises corporate and individual clients in white-collar criminal matters, including investigations initiated by the US Department of Justice (DOJ), the SEC and the CFTC. Often those investigations are preceded by internal investigations. Chris has run such internal investigations for manufacturing companies, investment banks, broker-dealers and hedge funds.

JD, The University of Chicago Law School; BA, Michigan State University