Andrew Boutros

Andrew S. Boutros is the National Co-Chair of the White Collar, Internal Investigations, and False Claims Team at Seyfarth Shaw LLP, an international law firm with more than 850 lawyers across 15 offices. Mr. Boutros leads a firm-wide team of nearly 30 attorneys in all aspects of the firm’s white collar practice, including  government enforcement defense, trials, internal investigations, false claims litigation, crisis management response, strategic counseling, and compliance-related work.

Profiled in 2017 in The Legal 500, Mr. Boutros is described as “exceptional, the real deal — very thorough, meticulous and client-focused.”  And, in 2018, Chambers USA recognized Mr. Boutros in the area of White Collar Crime & Government Investigations in Illinois. Mr. Boutros is resident in the firm’s Chicago and Washington, D.C. offices.

An accomplished former federal prosecutor who for years prosecuted financial fraud cases, Mr. Boutros now represents companies large and small, public and private, victims and targets as well as their officers, directors, and other individuals in their most sensitive government enforcement matters (DOJ, USAO, FBI, SEC, and other agencies) and important internal investigations.

He has conducted FCPA investigations in Canada, China, Europe, and the Middle East and has deep experience handling criminal customs, trade, and antidumping duty fraud cases. He also provides strategic counseling and advice to clients across subject matters in a variety of industries, including in the design and implementation of various compliance programs.

He has also personally represented clients in matters involving general fraud, embezzlement, the Travel Act, FARA, OFAC, tax, supply chain issues, government contracts, commercial bribery, kickback schemes, public corruption, insurance fraud, bank fraud, securities and accounting violations, healthcare and FDA violations, environmental crimes, trade secret theft, cyber hacking and extortion incidents, criminal antitrust violations, whistleblower allegations, the False Claims Act, among others.

Mr. Boutros is also deeply involved in various professional and legal activities and sits as a board member and advisor to several organizations.  Since 2011, he has been a Lecturer in Law at the University of Chicago Law School teaching a course on corporate criminal prosecutions and investigations.

An active officer of the American Bar Association, he is Co-Founder and National Co-Chair of the ABA’s Global Anti-Corruption Committee since 2010 as well as a voting Member of the ABA Criminal Justice Section Council, which is the governing body of the Criminal Justice Section and its nearly 20,000 members. Mr. Boutros is also a frequent legal commentator on national television.

For most of his nearly eight-year prosecutorial career, Mr. Boutros served in the Financial Crimes and Special Prosecutions Section of the Chicago U.S. Attorney’s Office. His investigations and prosecutions spanned the globe and are regarded as among the most extensive and complex multi-district, international corporate fraud and cybercrime cases in the nation’s history.

In total, Mr. Boutros coordinated efforts with international law enforcement authorities in more than 20 countries and charged and prosecuted crimes involving some $500 million in losses, proceeds, and judgments, while also investigating additional criminal conduct in the several billions of dollars.  The media has described Mr. Boutros’s fraud prosecutions as bringing “to mind images of Al Capone and organized crime.”

In addition, while in the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Mr. Boutros handled hundreds of matters; briefed and argued appeals to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, including the government’s defining “Iraqi sleeper spy” case; and tried or prepped for trial dozens of cases.  His trials involved charges of wire fraud, mail fraud, bank fraud, bankruptcy fraud, and false statements affecting financial institutions, among others.

Mr. Boutros is also among a select few prosecutors to insert an undercover federal agent into a real, non-government corporation; he did so as part of a sweeping, long-term fraud investigation into an entire industry’s supply chain.

In addition, Mr. Boutros has conducted and managed a variety of internal FCPA and other corporate investigations; advised clients on corporate compliance matters, including the FCPA; designed FCPA and other corporate compliance programs; and litigated cases in federal court and in arbitration.

As a federal prosecutor, Mr. Boutros provided strategic counseling and advice on the FCPA and other closely related matters. He also advised on amending Rule 4 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure to address serving criminal summons on foreign organizational defendants.