Junaid A. Zubairi

Junaid Zubairi represents companies, boards, senior executives, financial advisors, and accounting firms in government investigations and related litigation, internal investigations, securities litigation and regulatory compliance matters.

A former senior enforcement attorney at the SEC, Junaid draws on his past experience and insider perspective to help clients respond to a broad array of inquiries by the SEC, DOJ, PCAOB and other federal and state agencies.

Junaid advises clients on issues including alleged accounting and financial fraud, disclosure issues, investment advisor misconduct, insider trading, audit deficiencies and other high-stakes investigations. He contains problems before they escalate, and structures responses that are persuasive to regulators. Clients turn to him to secure declinations, mitigate penalties and obtain favorable resolutions in line with their broader business goals. Experienced in parallel investigations involving sensitive matters, Junaid delivers actionable guidance with discretion.

A recognized authority, Junaid speaks frequently on SEC, DOJ, compliance, white-collar and enforcement trends. His insights have also been featured in SEC Today, Compliance Week, and other industry publications, where he is regularly called on to discuss government priorities and effective defense strategies.

Experience

• Represented a senior executive at a publicly traded real estate investment trust (REIT) in connection with an ongoing insider trading investigation conducted by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
• Represented former chief financial officer of a multinational company in a federal securities class action lawsuit in the Northern District of Illinois, along with multiple federal and state derivative actions in the District of Delaware. Among other things, plaintiffs in these cases alleged that client and others at the company made false and misleading statements about the profitability of one of their business segments and engaged in accounting fraud.
• Represented an institutional broker-dealer in connection with a parallel investigation and litigation filed by the SEC and DOJ relating to, among other topics, the personal trading activity of five individuals that were formerly associated with the company.
• Represented the audit committee of a public gas turbine company in connection with an investigation concerning revenue recognition practices, including bill and hold practices. This culminated in an announcement by the company of a multi-year restatement. Additionally represented the audit committee in connection with a recent self-report to the SEC regarding the same revenue recognition conduct.
• Represented affiliated entity of investment management company and various related individuals in connection with an SEC investigation concerning matters relating to solicitation of investor funds to acquire and operate various businesses. The areas at issue in the investigation include certain potentially undisclosed conflicts of interest, compliance with various federal securities registration exemptions, and other disclosure issues.
• Represented a registered investment adviser in connection with an ongoing SEC inquiry regarding the use of leverage in two closed-end funds that resulted in significant losses in March 2020. Likewise represented the two relevant funds for the limited purpose of producing documents to the SEC. The adviser and two relevant funds received termination notices from the SEC, which indicated that the SEC was not intending to recommend an enforcement and had concluded its investigation.