Mr Boyd Johnson > WilmerHale > New York, United States > Lawyer Profile
WilmerHale Offices
7 WORLD TRADE CENTER
250 GREENWICH STREET
NEW YORK, NY 10007
NEW YORK
United States
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Mr Boyd Johnson
Position
Partner
Career
Leveraging three decades of public and private sector experience, Boyd Johnson provides strategic counseling to companies, boards of directors, and senior executives in their most significant and sensitive investigations, litigation, and regulatory matters. Over the past three decades, Mr. Johnson has served in a variety of senior roles, including as global general counsel for Soros Fund Management, the investment management firm founded by George Soros; the co-chair of WilmerHale’s White Collar Defense and Investigations Practice; and the Deputy US Attorney for the Southern District of New York. A skilled trial lawyer who has tried numerous cases to verdict and managed litigation matters in-house as a general counsel, Mr. Johnson is uniquely positioned to bring high-stakes disputes to positive resolutions for clients. Chambers USA, Best Lawyers in America, and The Legal 500 have consistently recognized Mr. Johnson as one of the nation’s leading defense lawyers.
From 2018 to 2020, Mr. Johnson served as the global general counsel for Soros Fund Management. In that role, he oversaw legal, compliance, and regulatory functions in New York, London, and Hong Kong, and supervised the firm’s litigations, employment disputes, and regulatory inquiries. Mr. Johnson managed relationships with the SEC, the UK Financial Conduct Authority, and the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission. He supervised the negotiation and structuring of capital markets transactions; mergers and acquisitions; and hundreds of investments across public and private equities and credit, venture capital, distressed debt, global macro, real estate, and other strategies. Mr. Johnson served on the boards of directors of the firm’s offshore and onshore funds and portfolio companies. He also served as a member of the firm’s Leadership Team and Valuation, Liquidity and Risk, and Cybersecurity Committees.
During his previous seven-year tenure at WilmerHale, Mr. Johnson was the co-chair of the White Collar Defense and Investigations Practice with attorneys in New York, Washington DC, Boston, Denver, and London. He represented financial services firms, public and private companies, and their boards and senior executives in criminal and civil investigations conducted by the DOJ, the SEC, the CFTC, FINRA, the New York State Attorney General’s Office, the New York State Department of Financial Services, and the New York City Department of Investigation, as well as international regulators from the United Kingdom to Hong Kong. Mr. Johnson successfully represented dozens of companies in high-stakes criminal and civil cases involving insider trading and financial fraud, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and public corruption violations, antitrust concerns, Bank Secrecy Act and AML issues, False Claims Act and FIRREA actions, and cybersecurity incidents. Mr. Johnson conducted internal investigations for companies and advised business organizations on crisis response and media relations. He also represented companies and their senior executives in a variety of complex civil litigation.
Before joining WilmerHale in 2011, Mr. Johnson served as the Deputy US Attorney for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) and oversaw the litigation of all criminal and civil cases brought on behalf of the United States in the Southern District. He supervised over 200 Assistant US Attorneys and managed, among other matters, the largest criminal enforcement effort against hedge fund insider trading in history; the criminal prosecutions and civil forfeiture proceedings related to the Bernard Madoff fraud; and FCPA, money laundering, tax fraud, and cybersecurity investigations and prosecutions. As Deputy US Attorney, Mr. Johnson participated in the creation of the SDNY’s Civil Frauds Unit and oversaw False Claims Act and FIRREA lawsuits against financial services firms and healthcare companies.
Before becoming Deputy US Attorney, Mr. Johnson served as Chief of the SDNY’s Public Corruption Unit. In that capacity, he supervised bribery and embezzlement prosecutions of members of the US Congress, New York State legislators and New York City council members, as well as corruption investigations at the United Nations. While at the SDNY, Mr. Johnson also served as the Chief of the International Narcotics Trafficking Unit, focusing on the extradition and prosecution of drug kingpins, narco-terrorists, and the leaders of global money laundering networks. In that role, he worked with the US Treasury Department to build prosecutions against the leaders of the Cali Cartel and the Taliban based on violations of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
During his thirteen-year tenure at SDNY, Mr. Johnson tried more than fifteen cases to verdict and argued more than fifteen appeals before the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He served as the lead prosecutor in the trial conviction of Monzer al Kassar for conspiracy to provide weapons to a terrorist organization.
Before serving as a federal prosecutor, Mr. Johnson represented companies in antitrust, false advertising, accounting fraud, and securities fraud matters for five years at another international law firm. After graduating from Cornell Law School, he clerked for the Honorable Laughlin E. Waters in the US District Court for the Central District of California.
Education
- JD, Cornell Law School, 1992
- BA, English and Government, Hamilton College, 1989
Top Tier Firm Rankings
- Finance > Financial services regulation
- Antitrust > Cartel
- International trade > CFIUS
- Antitrust > Civil litigation/class actions: defense
- Industry focus > Education
- Intellectual property > Patents: licensing
- Industry focus > Education
- Industry focus > Education
- Industry focus > Native American law
- Intellectual property > Patents: litigation (full coverage)
- Dispute resolution > Securities litigation: defense
Firm Rankings
- Media, technology and telecoms > Cyber law (including data privacy and data protection)
- Dispute resolution > General commercial disputes
- M&A/corporate and commercial > M&A: middle-market ($500m-999m)
- Media, technology and telecoms > Outsourcing
- Government > State attorneys general
- Media, technology and telecoms > Technology transactions
- International trade > Trade remedies and trade policy
- M&A/corporate and commercial > Venture capital and emerging companies
- Finance > Capital markets: equity offerings
- M&A/corporate and commercial > Corporate governance
- International trade > Customs, export controls and economic sanctions
- Government > Government contracts
- Government > Government relations
- Dispute resolution > International arbitration
- Healthcare > Life sciences
- Labor and employment > Employee benefits, executive compensation and retirement plans: transactional
- Environment > Environment: regulatory
- Dispute resolution > Financial services litigation
- Finance > Fintech
- Media, technology and telecoms > Media and entertainment: litigation
- Antitrust > Merger control
- Intellectual property > Patents: litigation (International Trade Commission)
- Tax > US taxes: non-contentious
- Finance > Commercial lending
- Real estate > Real estate
- Finance > Restructuring (including bankruptcy): corporate
- Dispute resolution > Appellate: courts of appeals / Appellate: supreme courts (states and federal)
- Finance > Capital markets: debt offerings
- Dispute resolution > Corporate investigations and white-collar criminal defense