Kevin R. Puvalowski

Kevin R. Puvalowski is a litigation partner in the firm's New York office, where he specializes in white collar and civil fraud defense. 

Areas of Practice

Mr. Puvalowski represents institutions and individuals in criminal, civil enforcement and regulatory investigations and proceedings before federal and state courts, arbitration panels, and regulatory and enforcement agencies, including the Securities and Exchange Commission.  Areas of expertise include matters involving the Bank Secrecy Act and anti-money laundering ("BSA/AML") laws and regulations, securities and commodities fraud, exotic financial products and securitization, mortgage fraud, forfeiture and asset freezes, tax fraud, Congressional investigations, False Claims Act (“FCA”) and whistleblower issues, and cross-border criminal matters, including Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”) investigations. Recent matters include:

• Representation of a bank in an enforcement action before the Office of Thrift Supervision relating to BSA/AML issues;
• Representation of an individual and a group of family companies and trusts in a federal criminal asset forfeiture proceeding;
• Representation of a bank in a mortgage fraud investigation conducted by the Manhattan District Attorney's Office; and
• Representation of a publicly traded company in a civil action involving allegations of fraud and breach of fiduciary duty with respect to a private investment in public equity ("PIPE") transaction.

Mr. Puvalowski has extensive trial and appellate experience, having tried more than a dozen criminal and civil trials before federal and state courts and worked on dozens of appeals, including arguing numerous appeals in the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. 

Mr. Puvalowski joined the firm after almost nine years of government service.  He most recently served as Deputy Special Inspector General in the Office of the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (“SIGTARP”); before SIGTARP, he was a federal prosecutor in Manhattan for more than seven years. 

At SIGTARP, Mr. Puvalowski co-founded the federal agency that was created to oversee the $700 billion bailout program and helped build it into a sophisticated law enforcement and audit agency with more than 120 employees and a $50 million annual budget.  He served as the Special Inspector General’s principal deputy and primary advisor and represented the office in dealings with federal agencies, law enforcement, the financial industry, the media, and Congress, including testifying at Congressional hearings.  Mr. Puvalowski's responsibilities included oversight of various aspects of the bailout, including the capital injections into the nation’s largest financial institutions, the investments in AIG and the auto industry, and the efforts to support the securitization and mortgage markets. He met regularly with the senior leadership of the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve, the Department of Justice, the Securities and Exchange Commission and other federal law enforcement and regulatory agencies, and helped oversee SIGTARP’s parallel criminal and civil investigations.

Prior to SIGTARP, Mr. Puvalowski was an Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York, where he prosecuted a broad range of criminal and asset forfeiture cases, with an emphasis in complex money laundering, asset forfeiture and international crimes.  He tried nine felony trials and briefed and argued numerous appeals.  During his tenure at the United States Attorney’s Office, Mr. Puvalowski held several leadership positions:  he served as the Chief of the International Narcotics Trafficking Unit, one of the nation’s pre-eminent international narcotics prosecution units, which focused on sophisticated narcotics, complex money laundering and narco-terrorism matters; he served as a Deputy Chief Appellate Attorney, supervising the Criminal Division’s practice before the Court of Appeals, including editing briefs filed in the Second Circuit and directing preparation for oral argument; and he served as Regional Coordinator of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (“OCDETF”), overseeing the OCDETF program throughout the New York/New Jersey Region.  As a result of his exemplary service, Mr. Puvalowski was twice awarded the Attorney General's John Marshall Award, one of the Department of Justice's highest honors.   

Education

• J.D., Fordham University School of Law, 1994, cum laude, Order of the Coif, Associate Editor, Fordham Law Review
• A.B., University of Michigan, 1990

Clerkships

• Law Clerk to the Honorable Loretta A. Preska, United States District Court, Southern District of New York

Admissions

• New York
• New Jersey
• United States District Court, Southern District of New York
• United States District Court, Eastern District of New York
• United States District Court, District of New Jersey
• United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit

Honors

• Recipient, 2005 Attorney General’s John Marshall Award for Operation White Dollar, a international money laundering investigation that led to charges against 35 defendants, asset freezes in multiple countries and forfeiture of $20 million
• Recipient, 2006 Attorney General’s John Marshall Award for the AremisSoft Corp. securities fraud case, which included recovery of $200 million of fraud proceeds after successful litigations in the Isle of Man and in multiple federal courts

Memberships

• Member, Board of Trustees, New Jersey Repertory Company, a non-profit arts organization based in Long Branch, New Jersey

Articles

Latin American Law Blog Articles

• "Second Circuit Affirms Conviction for Unlicensed Money Transmitting Based on Chilean Company's Use of U.S. Bank Accounts," October 6, 2010

Events

• Labor & Employment Law Update - New York, May 9, 2012
• Financial Regulation and Enforcement Symposium 2011, March 10, 2011, A Conversation With the Agencies