Maria Galeno

With more than 25 years’ experience, Pillsbury Litigation partner and trial lawyer Maria T. Galeno handles white collar criminal and regulatory enforcement matters and conducts internal investigations.

A former prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, Maria is Pillsbury’s Corporate Investigations & White Collar Defense practice deputy chair and a member of the firm’s National Trials team. Her international clientele includes banks, investment firms, technology companies, hospitals and executives.

Experienced in internal investigations; securities, mail and tax fraud; and commercial contract and professional liability disputes, Maria represents clients in federal and state courts and arbitral forums. Global Investigations Review has chosen Maria as one of the 100 most remarkable women in the investigations field.

REPRESENTATIVE EXPERIENCE :

• Represented multiple Swiss banks before the DOJ in Swiss/U.S. Program for Non-Prosecution Agreements resulting from DOJ probes into U.S. depositors’ offshore accounts, and conducted internal investigations at the banks.
• Served as lead trial counsel, obtaining a favorable judgment in a closely watched software licensing trial in Delaware Chancery Court arising from the divestiture of software assets; successfully defended the judgment before the Delaware Supreme Court.
• Represented a non-U.S. bank in an internal investigation of foreign exchange benchmark rate manipulation allegations.
• Served as co-lead trial counsel in New York City’s landmark litigation against 27 out-of-state gun dealers.
• Defense of a U.S. subsidiary of a major Japanese company against multi-party claims of discrimination based on race and nationality, and claims for multi-million dollar bonuses.
• Defend CFO of medical services company in US Attorney’s Office and S.E.C. investigation for accounting irregularities.
• Participate in defense of investment advisor in mutual fund investigation by the New York State Attorney General’s Office.
• Conducted internal investigations involving employee dishonesty, insider trading and gender discrimination.

EDUCATION :

• J.D., Harvard Law School
• B.S., St. John’s University

ADMISSIONS : New York

COURTS :

• U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit
• U.S. District Court for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York