About

Number of years practice: 26 Principal practice areas: White collar: government litigation and investigations Bar admissions: California, US Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit, US District Court (ED, ND, SD, CD) Languages spoken: English and Spanish

Former Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) trial lawyer José Sanchez is a litigation partner in Sidley Austin’s Los Angeles office and West Coast coordinator of the firm’s securities and derivatives enforcement and regulatory group. He joined the SEC in 2000, just as the Enron scandal was unfolding, and went on to work on some of the most high profile regulatory enforcement and financial fraud cases in the US, accumulating incomparable experience appearing before the SEC, The Department of Justice, The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, state Boards of Accountancy and other regulators. At Sidley, his practice focuses on the defence and litigation of securities enforcement actions, white collar matters and complex civil disputes involving issuer financial disclosure, accounting and auditing issues, the FCPA, insider trading, hedge fund trading and compliance issues. Fluent in Spanish, Sanchez is currently leading regulatory matters and investigations involving Mexico, Brazil and other parts of Latin America. In addition to this broad regulatory, enforcement and investigations experience, he handles securities fraud class action, shareholder derivative, professional malpractice and other private civil litigation in state and federal courts. His recent representations in Mexico include defending Mexican professional services firm in malpractice litigation pending in Delaware; representing audit committee of publicly traded Mexican company in SEC investigation regarding revenue recognition issues; and performing FCPA anticorruption risk assessments in Mexico and Czech Republic for a global healthcare company. Sanchez is committed to pro bono legal work and is involved in various non-profit organisations. He co-leads the pro bono constitutional challenge to Texas’ Senate Bill 4 which grants federal immigration enforcement authority to local police and punishes local officials with fines and jail time for denying local assistance to federal immigration officers. In addition, he worked on pro bono amicus briefs that helped persuade the US Supreme Court to uphold the “one person, one-vote” principle in Evenwel v Abbott (2016) and that supported the constitutionality of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act in Shelby County, Alabama v Eric H. Holder (2013).