James G. Cavoli is a partner in the New York office of Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy and a member of the firm’s Litigation & Arbitration Group.
Mr. Cavoli’s practice focuses on white collar defense and related internal investigations. He also handles a wide range of complex commercial litigation.
Mr. Cavoli represents companies and individuals in government enforcement matters, both criminal and civil, and has substantial experience conducting complex internal investigations. He currently represents a global financial institution in LIBOR-related actions and investigations being conducted by many regulators worldwide, including the DOJ, the CFTC, numerous State Attorneys General, and the UK FCA. He is also conducting an internal review of FX trading practices on behalf of a large financial institution, and is investigating questions relating to the possible front-running of block future trades at one of the world’s largest banks. Mr. Cavoli also represents a retail bank in the context of a BSA/AML investigation being conducted by DOJ, and a number of financial institution executives in various ongoing investigations by DOJ and the SEC. He represented a major broker-dealer in connection with the industry-wide auction rate securities investigation by the SEC and state regulators, defended against bid-rigging allegations by the DOJ, Antitrust Division, represented a major Wall Street bank in connection with SEC allegations of improper trading, and represented the former president of a major international bank in the context of a DOJ investigation into possible OFAC violations.
Mr. Cavoli also has substantial experience in private civil litigation, focusing primarily on securities and complex commercial disputes. He represented one of the world’s largest commercial banks in major litigation stemming from the Adelphia bankruptcy. In separate litigations, Mr. Cavoli represented two of the largest mutual fund complexes against excessive fee claims, one of which he tried to victory in the United States District Court for the Central District of California. He also represented several leading energy producers in international commercial disputes concerning LNG contracts, and has represented prominent financial institutions in various multi-million-dollar FINRA arbitrations.
Mr. Cavoli began his career in 1992 at Rogers & Wells (now Clifford Chance LLP), where he worked for over five years, focusing on antitrust litigation. In February 1998, he became an Assistant United States Attorney, Criminal Division, Southern District of New York. While there, Mr. Cavoli led a wide variety of criminal investigations and successful prosecutions, focusing primarily on white-collar matters. He was a member of the Securities and Commodities Fraud Unit, where he handled matters involving accounting fraud, insider trading, and hedge-fund manager bribery, and worked closely with SEC staff conducting parallel civil investigations. Mr. Cavoli was also a member of the Major Crimes Unit, where he prosecuted health care fraud, bank, mail and wire fraud, money laundering, extortion, and obstruction of justice offenses, among others, and served as health care fraud coordinator. Mr. Cavoli also served as deputy chief appellate attorney for the Office, one of six supervisors in charge of overseeing briefing and argument of all appeals before the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. As an Assistant, he handled numerous jury trials and arguments before the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.
