Robert Khuzami, the former head of enforcement at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, is joining Kirkland & Ellis LLP, the law firm said. Mark Filip, a partner in charge of Kirkland’s government enforcement defense and internal investigations, said Khuzami will help immediately in securities enforcement defense, advising boards and companies and counseling financial institutions on securities regulations. He will complement the firm’s general white-collar, internal investigations, and private class-action securities practices, Filip said yesterday in an interview. Khuzami, 56, a former federal prosecutor and top lawyer at Deutsche Bank AG, took over the SEC’s enforcement division in 2009 under Mary Schapiro, who was hired as chairman to help restore the agency’s image after it was battered for missing Bernard L. Madoff’s Ponzi scheme. Khuzami carried out the biggest shakeup in the enforcement unit’s history, eliminating management layers, expanding investigators’ powers and creating five specialized units to police Wall Street. More on Bloomberg here.
