Bill Mateja is a Principal in the Dallas office of Fish & Richardson P.C. Prior to joining the Firm in January 2005, he served as Senior Counsel to U.S. Deputy Attorneys General Larry Thompson and James Comey in Washington, D.C., where he also served as point person for the President’s Corporate Fraud Task Force while also overseeing the Justice Department’s white collar, health care fraud, and corporate fraud efforts. Mr. Mateja also served as the Justice Department’s Special Counsel for Health Care Fraud, and chaired the Attorney General’s working group on sentencing policy.
Mr. Mateja is a highly regarded trial attorney who uses his 13 years of experience with the Justice Department in Texas and Washington, D.C., coupled with over 25 years of legal experience, to successfully represent companies and individuals in “high stakes” government and internal investigations, civil enforcement actions, lawsuits, and criminal prosecutions across the country. These cases involved a broad array of subject matters, including corporate accountability, fraud and abuse, securities investigations and litigation, health care fraud, and government regulatory matters and investigations. He represents clients before the SEC, various U.S. Attorney’s Offices, the Texas Attorney General, local district attorney’s offices, and numerous other federal, state, and local governmental authorities. Almost immediately after returning to private practice, he was selected as a Texas Super Lawyer in the area of white collar criminal defense, and has been included every year since 2006. D Magazine selected Mr. Mateja as one of the “Best Lawyers in Dallas” for 2008, 2009, 2011 and 2014. He was also selected by his peers for inclusion in the 2010-2015 editions of The Best Lawyers in America® in the practice areas of commercial litigation and SEC/telecom/energy regulatory defense.
As Senior Counsel to the Deputy Attorney General in 2003 and 2004, Mr. Mateja supervised the Justice Department’s efforts in a number of high-profile corporate fraud prosecutions, such as Enron, World Com, Health South, Homestore.Com, Computer Associates, Credit Lyonnais, McKesson HBOC, Reliant Corporation, Symbol Technologies, Adelphia, and Rite Aid. Cataloguing these efforts is the Corporate Fraud Task Force’s First and Second Year Reports to the President, which Mr. Mateja personally authored as the Task Force’s point person.
As DOJ’s Special Counsel for Health Care Fraud in 2004, Mr. Mateja oversaw the Justice Department’s civil and criminal health care fraud efforts. As a result of his efforts, the Justice Department reaffirmed health care fraud as a top white collar crime priority and instituted a number of high-profile health care fraud prosecutions, particularly in the area of pharmaceuticals. One such prosecution resulted in what was then the second largest criminal fine in a health care fraud case ($240 million), and the conviction of Warner-Lambert’s Parke-Davis pharmaceutical division in connection with its illegal promotion of off-label uses for Neurontin, an anti-seizure drug. Another prosecution resulted in the conviction of Schering Sales Corp., the sales and marketing subsidiary of drug manufacturer Schering-Plough Corporation, and payment by Schering-Plough of over $340 million in criminal and civil fines. This prosecution centered on Schering’s fraudulent pricing of Claritin, its blockbuster allergy medication.
In 2003, Mr. Mateja supervised DOJ’s violent crime efforts, which included oversight over the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Project Safe Neighborhoods, President George W. Bush’s comprehensive, strategic approach to reducing gun crime in America.
Mr. Mateja served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Northern District of Texas beginning in 1991. As a federal prosecutor, Mr. Mateja prosecuted and tried to jury many of the most significant white collar crime and corruption cases arising out of the Northern District. Mr. Mateja received the 2001 Executive Office of U.S. Attorneys’ Director’s Award for Superior Performance as an Assistant U.S. Attorney. He also received a number of other awards for outstanding work as a federal prosecutor from various federal and state law enforcement agencies, including the prestigious Texas Department of Public Safety’s Director’s Award.
