Mark S. Willis Mark Willis joined the Firm in 1989 and is a Partner in the Securities Fraud/Investor Protection practice group. Mr. Willis heads the Firm's international securities practice as well as its domestic client development work.
Mr. Willis focuses his practice on investor protection issues, including the enforcement of the federal securities laws. In that role he works with a number of European and domestic institutional investors on investor protection and corporate governance matters. He currently acts as co-lead counsel in the In re Parmalat Securities Litigation (S.D.N.Y.), the largest fraud in European corporate history that is frequently referred to as Europe’s “Enron”. Mr. Willis represents Italian, French and Belgian institutions in that action. He also represented Brussels-based KBC Asset Management in the In re Royal Dutch/Shell Securities Litigation. Among other notable cases, Mr. Willis litigated against Caremark International in which Caremark was accused of federal Medicare fraud, subsequently pled guilty and paid the U.S. Government a fine of approximately $160 million and $25 million in a civil settlement. Mr. Willis also litigated against National Health Labs, which resulted in a $65 million settlement, and settled claims against Nextel Communications and Motorola.
Mr. Willis has written extensively on corporate, securities and investor protection issues, often with an international focus. He authored Chapter 60 of Securities Law Techniques, titled Admission of Securities to Official Listing on Stock Exchanges Within the European Union and the Subsequent Disclosure Obligations (1998). He published a related article in the Fall 1997 issue of the International Law News, A Brief Overview of the European Union's Efforts to Harmonize the Requirements for Listing Securities. He also authored Chapter 196 of Business Organizations with Tax Planning, titled Company Laws of the European Union (1998). Mr. Willis wrote about investor protection issues in an article published in the July/August 2003 edition of Professional Investor, a United Kingdom-based journal for institutional investors and investment professionals. A second article, co-authored by Mr. Willis, appeared in the same publication’s May 2005 edition. He was also the co-author of the Comment entitled Corporation Code Sections 309 and 1203: California Redefines Directors' Duties Towards Shareholders, Pepperdine Law Review, Volume 16, No. 4 (1989).
Mr. Willis has been a frequent speaker at institutional investor conferences on the issues of investor protection through the federal securities laws and the importance of using corporate governance measures to force companies to put the interests of their shareholders first. In addition to numerous forums in the United States, Mr. Willis was invited to address these topics at institutional investor conferences held in London and Paris in January 2003 and spoke at similar conferences in Munich and Milan in the Spring of 2005. He also addressed corporate governance issues at the Annual Conference of the National Council on Teacher Retirement in October 2004. Mr. Willis obtained a Masters in International Law, with an emphasis in securities regulation, from the Georgetown University Law Center in 1993. He graduated from Pepperdine University School of Law in 1989 where he was a member of the Moot Court Team and won the Dalsimer Moot Court Competition. Mr. Willis received his B.A. in English History from Brigham Young University in 1986.
Mr. Willis is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia and Massachusetts.
Contact: mwillis@cmht.com Practice Area: |
