After serving for nearly a decade as a trial lawyer at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s Fort Worth Regional Office, Chris Davis has left the public sector to lead the white-collar defense practice group at Gray Reed, the Texas law firm announced on Monday.
Davis was involved in groundbreaking cases at the SEC. He helped the regulatory agency achieve its first-ever emergency appointment of a receiver in a case stemming from a fraudulent cryptocurrency offering in the AriseBank case. And in a coordinated action with the FBI and Commodity Futures Trading Commission, he helped bring the SEC’s first-ever action against an unregistered online security-based swaps dealer, 1Broker.
Davis was introduced to Gray Reed and Dallas partner J.P. Vogel through a client of the firm’s. Specifically noting Gray Reed’s depth in healthcare, Davis says it was an opportunity he couldn’t pass up.
“The No. 1 thing for me is the people I will work with for the next 20 years,” Davis says. “The firm can be full-service for my clients and it is committed to growing and devoting resources [to the white collar practice].”
Gray Reed managing partner Cary Gray says somebody with Davis’ résumé is highly sought after.
“This is a specialized practice area,” Gray says. “He will know what lawyers inside the government are thinking and he has significant trial experience.”
Davis earned a CPA and worked for Pricewaterhouse during Y2K and the dawn of the web before going to law school at the University of Texas in 2002. He says he became “enamored” with working for the government during a clerkship in D.C. his freshman year.
After graduating from UT in 2005, Davis joined Baker Botts in Dallas, where he handled more patent litigation than anything else. Davis says the time came in 2010 for him to make the jump back to the government.
“The SEC was a good fit for me with my finance and accounting background,” says Davis, who was a member of the SEC’s digital currency working group. “The cases almost without exception seem to be complex, when you talk about an insider trading case or accounting fraud or the first of its kind offering fraud like AriseBank. Plus, you get to litigate against the white shoe firms and the high paid lawyers.”
In addition to the AriseBank and 1Broker cases, Davis was involved in:
· SEC v. Narayan, et al, where the SEC obtained emergency relief and negotiated favorable final judgments in a $33 million securities offering fraud targeting professional athletes.
· In the Matter of Bogar, et al, where the SEC investigated, charged, and obtained favorable litigated judgments against three former executives – including the CEO and CCO – following a three-week trial in connection with the $7 billion Stanford Ponzi scheme.
· In the Matter of Magnum Hunter Resources, et al, where the SEC investigated and negotiated settlements with a NYSE-listed energy company and its former CFO, CAO, auditor, and SOX consultant based on the company’s failure to evaluate and disclose internal control weaknesses.
Davis has high praise for the Fort Worth Regional Office and its new director, David Peavler.
“This office is as strong as it’s been with the exception of the hiring freeze,” Davis says. “David is an additional shot in the arm. He is as sharp a person as you will find and the leadership under him is incredibly strong.”
The new Gray Reed partner expects the SEC to continue its focus on complex accounting fraud (which he notes Peavler has significant experience in), protecting retail investors, cybersecurity and energy.
Davis says the office has been a “real leader” on cyber, pointing to the expertise of David Hirsch, who serves as the cyber liaison for the Fort Worth Regional Office and is a member of the SEC DLT Working Group and the Dark Web Working Group.
Healthcare was already a “huge deal,” but Davis expects even more activity after the results of the massive Forest Park trial.
“When you have that successful of a trial for the federal government, you can expect they are going to leverage that and do those types of cases,” he says. “You can now argue the U.S. Northern District of Texas is the number one jurisdiction for that kind of trial.”